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NASA - STS - Space Shuttle Atlantis

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Today I present to you one of the most important vehicles in human space exploration history.


Also known as Space Transportation System [STS]. The STS is a reusable space plane developed by NASA after the end of the Apollo Program. The shuttle's goal was to reduce the cost of space flight and reuse as much of the system as possible. To get into orbit the shuttle relied upon the Orbiter (the space plane bit), an external orange fuel tank and two Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs). The SRBs would be recovered after splashing down in the ocean and would be refurbished for their next flight. The Orbiter itself would renter the atmosphere using its thermal heat tiles to protect it from the heat and glide down to a selected runway like any normal plane. After completing its mission the shuttle would be placed on a carrier aircraft and flown to be refurbished before the next launch.


1) Enter the shuttle through the hatch and get into the right flight seat.
2) Press the timer block on the toolbar named 'START'. The rest of the launch is automatic.
3) After reaching space you can open the cargo bay doors and do stuff.
4) When coming back closed the cargo bay doors (obviously) and fly down to the planet.
5) Make sure that you don't nose dive straight into the ground as most of the thrust is on the underside of the shuttle. Also keep the orbit engines on for ease of use.
6) To extend the landing gear press buttons 7 to extend them and then 8 to lock the gears in place once they are extended.
7) Land VERY GENTLY. You can land this thing like a plane but make sure you are flying under 40m/s. If you don't want to bother with landing it like a plane land it like a helicopter.


A total of five shuttles (and one prototype shuttle) were made during the shuttle program. These include Enterprise (named after the Starship Enterprise NCC 1701 from Star Trek), Colombia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour. The first shuttle to launch was the Colombia on April 12th 1981. It launched from launch pad 39A, the same pad that Apollo 11 launched from. An additional launch pad 39B was used by the space shuttles. There was also a launch pad constructed at Vandenberg Air Force Base, however it would never end up being used. Over its entire life time the five shuttles would help to launch many satellites, space probes as well as rescue broken satellites using the Canadarm to grab the spacecraft, place it in the cargo bay and bring it down from space to be repaired. The Shuttle also launched with cargo labs to perform experiments (which I have made here in this build). The Shuttle also launched the Hubble Space Telescope and constructed most of the ISS. The Shuttle also visited the Russian Mir Space Station (which I will build) to help deliver cargo and supplies.

However during the shuttle program there were two serious disasters. On January 28th 1986 the Space Shuttle Challenger was destroyed during launch when an o-ring on one of the boosters cracked leading to the destruction of the vehicle. All aboard the shuttle were lost in the accident.

A replacement shuttle was built and named Endeavour. The spacecraft was mostly made out of spare parts as NASA had stopped building shuttles.

Another disaster occurred on February 1st 2003 when Space Shuttle Colombia was destroyed during re-entry. This was caused by a piece of insulation from the external tank breaking off and hitting the wing which created a hole on one of the hottest areas during re-entry. Although the shuttle would continue to fly for another few years this would be the start of the end of the shuttle program.

The last shuttle (Atlantis OV-104) took off from pad 39A to the space station. The shuttle was able to complete the mission and landed back at the Kennedy Space Centre on July 21st 2011 for the last time... Its voyage.... at an end....

Ever since then America has relied on Soyuz launches to get to the ISS as well as other vehicles such as SpaceX Dragon to deliver cargo. However that will change this year with the launch of Crew Dragon.

Today you can see the shuttles at Kennedy Space Centre Visitor Complex (Atlantis OV-104), Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum (Discovery OV-103), California Science Center (Endeavour OV-105) and Intrepid Sea Air Space Museum (Enterprise OV-101).

Although the Shuttles will never fly again some of the Shuttles mission flown engines will fly on the SLS Rocket which was developed from the space shuttle.


For more rocket planes such as Dream Chaser Space Shuttle or Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo check out Star Core's Rocket Replicas collection.