STS-1

STS-1 (Space Transportation System-1) was the first orbital spaceflight of NASA's Space Shuttle program. The first orbiter, Columbia, launched on 12 April 1981 and returned on 14 April, 54.5 hours later, having orbited the Earth 37 times. Columbia carried a crew of two – mission commander John W. Young and pilot Robert L. Crippen. It was the first American manned space flight since the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in 1975. STS-1 was also the only maiden test flight of a new US spacecraft to carry a crew, though it was preceded by atmospheric testing of the orbiter and ground testing of the space shuttle system.

The launch occurred on the 20th anniversary of the first-ever human spaceflight. This was a coincidence rather than a celebration of the anniversary; a technical problem had prevented STS-1 from launching two days earlier, as was planned.

Crew
Both Young and Crippen were selected as the STS-1 crew in March 1978. Young was the most experienced astronaut in NASA at the time and was also the only member of his astronaut class in service. He had first flown in 1965 as pilot of Gemini 3, the first manned flight of the Gemini program, and would later command Gemini 10 in 1966. After the conclusion of the Gemini program, Young flew as command module pilot of Apollo 10 in 1969 and walked on the Moon as commander of Apollo 16 in 1972. He later became Chief of the Astronaut Office in 1974. Crippen, who had joined NASA in 1969 after the cancellation of the Manned Orbiting Laboratory program, was a rookie and would become the first of his astronaut group to fly in space. Prior to his selection on STS-1, Crippen participated in the Skylab Medical Experiment Altitude Test and also served as a capsule communicator for all three Skylab missions and the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project.

Columbia was manifested with EMUs for both Young and Crippen in the event of an emergency spacewalk. If such an event occurred, Crippen would go outside the orbiter, with Young standing by in case Crippen required assistance.

Support crew

 * Daniel C. Brandenstein (ascent CAPCOM)
 * Henry W. Hartsfield
 * Joseph P. Allen (entry CAPCOM)

Mission parameters

 * Mass:
 * Orbiter liftoff: 219256 lb
 * Orbiter landing: 195466 lb
 * DFI payload: 10822 lb
 * Perigee: 149 mi
 * Apogee: 156 mi
 * Inclination: 40.3°
 * Orbital period: 89.4 min

Suborbital mission plan
During the original planning stages for the early shuttle missions, NASA management felt a need to undertake initial tests of the system prior to the first orbital flight. To that end, they suggested that STS-1, instead of being an orbital flight, be used to test the Return To Launch Site (RTLS) abort scenario. This involved an abort being called in the first few moments after launch, and using its main engines, once the SRBs had been jettisoned, to power it back to the launch site. This scenario, while potentially necessary in the event of an early abort being called, was seen as being extremely dangerous and, as a consequence, John Young overruled the proposal, and STS-1 went ahead as the first orbital mission.

Mission summary
The first launch of the Space Shuttle occurred on 12 April 1981, exactly 20 years after the first manned space flight, when the orbiter Columbia, with two crew members, astronauts John W. Young, commander, and Robert L. Crippen, pilot, lifted off from Pad A, Launch Complex 39, at the Kennedy Space Center. The launch took place at 7 a.m. EST. A launch attempt two days earlier was scrubbed because of a timing problem in one of Columbia’s general-purpose computers.

Not only was this the first launch of the Space Shuttle, but it marked the first time that solid-fuel rockets were used for a NASA manned launch (although all of the Mercury and Apollo astronauts had relied on a solid-fuel motor in their escape towers). STS-1 was also the first U.S. manned space vehicle launched without an unmanned powered test flight. The STS-1 orbiter, Columbia, also holds the record for the amount of time spent in the Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF) before launch – 610 days, the time needed for the replacement of many of its heat shield tiles.

The primary mission objectives of the maiden flight were to perform a general check out of the Space Shuttle system, accomplish a safe ascent into orbit and to return to Earth for a safe landing. The only payload carried on the mission was a Development Flight Instrumentation (DFI) package, which contained sensors and measuring devices to record the orbiter's performance and the stresses that occurred during launch, ascent, orbital flight, descent and landing. All of these objectives were met successfully, and the orbiter's spaceworthiness was verified.

During the second day of the mission, the astronauts received a phone call from Vice President George H. W. Bush. President Ronald Reagan had originally intended to visit the Mission Control Center during the mission, but at the time was still recovering from an assassination attempt which had taken place two weeks before the launch (in fact Reagan had only returned home to the White House the day prior to the launch).

Columbia reached an orbital altitude of 166 nmi. The 37-orbit, 1074567 mi-long flight lasted 2 days, 6 hours, 20 minutes and 53 seconds. Landing occurred on Runway 23 at Edwards Air Force Base, California, at 10:21 am PST on 14 April 1981. Columbia was returned to Kennedy Space Center from California on 28 April atop the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft.

Mission anomalies


STS-1 was the first test flight of what was, at the time, the most complex spacecraft ever built. Numerous anomalies were observed during and after the flight, owing to the many components and systems that could not otherwise be adequately tested. Notable anomalies included:
 * Similar to the first Saturn V launch in 1967, NASA underestimated the amount of noise and vibration produced by the Shuttle. Shock waves from the SRB thrust were deflected up into the orbiter's tail section, which could have caused structural or other damage. An improved water suppressant system was later installed in LC 39A to dampen vibrations.
 * Pilot Crippen reported that, throughout the first stage of the launch up to SRB separation, he saw "white stuff" coming off the External Tank and splattering the windows, which was probably the white paint covering the ET's thermal foam.
 * The astronauts' on-orbit visual inspection showed significant damage to the thermal protection tiles on the OMS/RCS pods at the orbiter's aft end, and John Young reported that two tiles on the nose looked like someone had taken "big bites out of them." Classified cameras at a United States Air Force satellite tracking station in Hawaii took high-resolution photographs of the shuttle in orbit, and NASA concluded that the damage didn't constitute a "major problem." Post-flight inspection of Columbia confirmed that approximately 16 undensified tiles near the OMS pod had been lost during ascent.
 * Columbia's aerodynamics at high Mach numbers during reentry were found to differ significantly in some respects from those estimated in pre-flight testing. A misprediction of the location of the center of pressure (due to using an ideal gas model instead of a real gas model) caused the computer to have to extend the body flap by sixteen degrees rather than the expected eight or nine, and side-slip during the first bank reversal maneuver was twice as high as predicted.
 * The orbiter's heat shield was damaged when an overpressure wave from the solid rocket booster caused a forward RCS oxidizer strut to fail. The same overpressure wave also forced the shuttle's "body flap" – an extension on the orbiter's underbelly that helps to control pitch during reentry – into an angle well beyond the point where cracking or rupture of its hydraulic system would have been expected. Such damage would have made a controlled descent impossible, with John Young later admitting that had the crew known about this, they would have flown the shuttle up to a safe altitude and ejected, causing Columbia to have been lost on the first flight.
 * The strike plate next to the forward latch of Columbia's external tank door was melted and distorted due to excess heat exposure during reentry. This heat was attributed to an improperly installed tile adjacent to the plate.
 * During remarks at a 2003 gathering, John Young stated that a protruding tile gap filler ducted hot gas into the right main landing gear well, which caused significant damage, including the buckling of the landing gear. He said that neither he nor Crippen were told about this incident and he was not aware that it had happened until reading the postflight mission report for STS-1, also adding that the gas leak was noted in the report, but not the buckling of the landing strut.

Despite these problems, the STS-1 mission was completed successfully, and in most respects Columbia performed optimally. After some modifications to the shuttle and to the launch and re-entry procedures, Columbia flew the next four Shuttle missions.

Mission insignia
The artwork for the official mission insignia was designed by artist Robert McCall. It is a symbolic representation of the shuttle. The image does not depict the black wing roots present on the actual shuttle.

Anniversary
The ultimate launch date of STS-1 fell on the 20th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's Vostok 1, the first spaceflight to carry a human crew. In 2001, Yuri's Night was established to celebrate both events. In a tribute to the 25th anniversary of the first flight of Space Shuttle, Firing Room 1 in the Launch Control Center at Kennedy Space Center – which launched STS-1 – was renamed the Young-Crippen Firing Room. NASA described the mission as "the boldest test flight in history".

External tank
STS-1 and STS-2 were the only two shuttle flights to have the External Tank (ET) painted white. To reduce the shuttle's overall weight, all flights from STS-3 onward used an unpainted tank. The use of an unpainted tank provided a weight saving of approximately 272 kg, and gave the ET the distinctive orange color which later became associated with the Space Shuttle.

In popular culture
The song "Countdown", by Rush, from the 1982 album Signals, was written about STS-1 and the inaugural flight of Columbia. The song was "dedicated with thanks to astronauts Young and Crippen and all the people of NASA for their inspiration and cooperation".

IMAX cameras filmed the launch, landing, and mission control during the flight, for a film entitled Hail Columbia!, which debuted in 1982 and later became available on DVD. The title of the film comes from the pre-1930s unofficial American national anthem, Hail, Columbia.

Wake-up calls
NASA began a tradition of playing music to astronauts during the Gemini program, and first used music to wake up a flight crew during Apollo 15. A special musical track is chosen for each day in space, often by the astronauts' families, to have a special meaning to an individual member of the crew, or in reference to the day's planned activities.