After the accident, NASA attempted to aim at a more realistic shuttle flight rate: it added another orbiter, Endeavour, to the space shuttle fleet to replace Challenger, and it worked with the Department of Defense to put more satellites in orbit using expendable launch vehicles rather than the shuttle.

She worked mainly on orbiter displays and controls before being assigned as a flight engineer in 1980 and co-pilot on NASA administrative aircraft.

In between his first two flights, he worked as the Shuttle Landing and Rollout representative responsible for training flight crews and testing orbiter landing techniques and flying qualities.

The orbiter contains enough propellant to operate at least until 2015.

A Jupiter aerobot might also drop sondes deep into the atmosphere and relay their data back to an orbiter until the sondes are destroyed by temperature and pressure.

The primary science phase of the orbiter could not begin until after both Penetrators were released and the propulsion unit was jettisoned.

The two systems operate from T minus 28 seconds until SRB separation from the orbiter and external tank.

These provide an output proportional to angular rates about the pitch and yaw axes to the orbiter computers and guidance, navigation and control system during first-stage ascent flight in conjunction with the orbiter roll rate gyros until SRB separation.

It provides precise elevation, directional and distance data which was used to guide the orbiter for the last two minutes of flight until touchdown.

Also, Columbia was the female symbol of the U. S. After construction, the orbiter arrived at Kennedy Space Center on March 25, 1979, to prepare for its first launch.

FSRI once covered almost 25 % of the orbiter, though the first upgrade resulted in its removal from many areas, and in later flights was only used on the upper section of the Payload Bay Doors and inboard sections of the upper wing surfaces.

Each blanket can replace as many as 25 tiles and is bonded directly to the orbiter.

* March 25 – The first fully functional space shuttle orbiter, Columbia, is delivered to the John F. Kennedy Space Center, to be prepared for its first launch.

Meanwhile, the orbiter had suffered from a partial loss of fuel and did not have enough to put itself into a planned 25 hour orbit.

* Mars 5 – 25 July 1973 – Mars orbiter

* Mars Observer – 25 September 1992 – Attempted Mars orbiter ( contact lost )

* Clementine – 25 January 1994 – Lunar orbiter / attempted asteroid flyby

Pioneer P-30 ( also known as Atlas-Able 5A, or Pioneer Y ) was intended to be a lunar orbiter probe, but the mission failed shortly after launch on September 25, 1960.

The orbiter suffered from a partial loss of fuel and did not have enough to put itself into a planned 25 hour orbit.

Huygens separated from the Cassini orbiter on December 25, 2004, and landed on Titan on January 14, 2005 near the Xanadu region.

* Huygens probe separated from Cassini orbiter at 02: 00 UTC on December 25, 2004 in Spacecraft Event Time.

Two earlier launch attempts, one on 24 August and another on 25 August, were scrubbed – the first because of poor weather, and the second because the backup orbiter computer failed and had to be replaced.

However, a liquid hydrogen leak found on orbiter Columbia during STS-35 countdown prompted three precautionary tanking tests on Atlantis at pad 29 June, 13 July and 25 July 1990.

After successfully orbiting the moon for a year and eight months, the main orbiter was instructed to impact on the lunar surface near the Gill lunar crater at 18: 25 UTC on June 10, 2009.

After releasing its atmospheric probe on 13 July 1995, the Galileo orbiter became the first man-made satellite of Jupiter at 00: 27 UT on 8 December 1995 when it fired its main engine to enter a 198-day parking orbit.

On July 31, 2008, NASA announced that the Phoenix lander confirmed the presence of water on Mars, as predicted in 2002 based on data from the Odyssey orbiter.

The mission ended July 31, 1999 when the orbiter was guided to an impact into a crater near the lunar south pole in an ( unsuccessful ) attempt to analyze lunar polar water by vaporizing it to allow spectroscopic characterization from Earth telescopes.

* Explorer 33 – 1 July 1966 – Attempted lunar orbiter ( failed to attain lunar orbit )

* Explorer 35 ( IMP-E ) – 19 July 1967 – Lunar orbiter

* Mars 4 – 21 July 1973 – Mars flyby ( attempted Mars orbiter )

* Phobos 1 – 7 July 1988 – Attempted Mars orbiter / Phobos landers ( contact lost )

* Phobos 2 – 12 July 1988 – Mars orbiter / attempted Phobos landers ( contact lost )

* Nozomi ( probe ) ( also known as Planet-B ) – 3 July 1998 – Attempted Mars orbiter ( failed to enter Mars orbit )

* Dawn – 27 September 2007 – Asteroid Ceres and Vesta orbiter ( entered orbit around Vesta on 16 July 2011 )

The lander separated from the orbiter on July 20 08: 51 UTC and landed at 11: 53: 06 UTC.

Viking AeroshellThe lander and its aeroshell separated from the orbiter on July 20 08: 51 UTC.

Launch was originally set for 23 July but was moved to 24 July to allow time to replace a faulty integrated electronics assembly that controls orbiter / external tank separation.

STS-46 was a NASA space shuttle mission using orbiter Atlantis and launched on 31 July 1992 at 9: 56: 48 am EDT.

The mission ended July 31, 1999, when the orbiter was deliberately crashed into a crater near the lunar south pole after the presence of water ice was successfully detected.

* Pioneer Venus 1 – 20 May 1978 – Venus orbiter

* Pioneer Venus project — US Venus orbiter and entry probes ( 1978 )