STS-31 was the thirty-fifth mission of the space shuttle program. Discovery's tenth mission deployed the Hubble Space Telescope.
The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program name was Space Transportation System (STS). Five complete Space Shuttle orbiter vehicles were built and flown on a total of 135 missions from 1981 to 2011.
Space Shuttle Discovery (Orbiter Vehicle Designation: OV-103) is one of the orbiters from NASA's Space Shuttle program and the third of five fully operational orbiters to be built. Its first mission, STS-41-D, flew from August 30 to September 5, 1984. Over 27 years of service it launched and landed 39 times, gathering more spaceflights than any other spacecraft to date. Discovery became the third operational orbiter to enter service, preceded by Columbia and Challenger. It embarked on its last mission, STS-133, on February 24, 2011 and touched down for the final time at Kennedy Space Center on March 9, having spent a cumulative total of almost a full year in space. Discovery performed both research and International Space Station (ISS) assembly missions. It also carried the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit. Discovery was the first operational shuttle to be retired, followed by Endeavour and then Atlantis.
Space Shuttle Details
Date of
Birth: Sept. 23, 1944
Age: 81
Date of
Birth: Aug. 19, 1946
Age: 79
Date of
Birth: June 8, 1937
Date of Death:
Dec. 21, 2017
Date of
Birth: Oct. 3, 1951
Age: 74
Date of
Birth: Dec. 12, 1951
Age: 74
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for the civilian space program, as well as aeronautics and aerospace research. NASA have many launch facilities but most are inactive. The most commonly used pad will be LC-39B at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
INFO WIKIThis NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features a glittering blue dwarf galaxy called Markarian 178 (Mrk 178). The galaxy, which is substantially smaller than our own Milky Way, lies 13 million light-years away in the constellation Urs…
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured an uncommon sight – the death of a low-mass star – in this image of the Calabash Nebula released on Feb. 3, 2017. Here, we can see the star going through a rapid transformation from a red giant to a p…
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope reobserved interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS on 30 November with its Wide Field Camera 3 instrument. At the time, the comet was about 286 million kilometers from Earth. Hubble tracked the comet as it moved acr…
Stars of all ages are on display in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image of the sparkling spiral galaxy called NGC 6000, located 102 million light-years away in the constellation Scorpius. NGC 6000 has a glowing yellow center and gli…
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image released on Sept. 12, 2025, features a cloudy starscape from an impressive star cluster. This scene is in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy situated about 160,000 light-years away in the …
RAISE-4 (RApid Innovative payload demonstration Satellite-4) is a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) satellite for on-orbit demonstrations of …
DEAR-5 is a commercial in-orbit payload and micro-gravity experiments hosting spacecraft developed by Chinese commercial company AZSPACE for various …
A batch of Low Earth Orbit communication satellites for the Chinese state owned SatNet constellation operated by the China Satellite Network Group. …
A batch of 29 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.
A batch of 27 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.
Share ride of 9 satellites to sun-synchronous orbit: * Satellite 813 (United Arab Emirates) * Jilin-1 Gaofen 07B-01/07C-01/07D-01 * Dongpo-15 …
Classified payload for the US National Reconnaissance Office.
Chinese classified satellite claimed to be for communication technology test purposes. Actual mission not known.
The Yaogan 47 is a Chinese military “remote sensing” satellite of unknown purposes.
A batch of 29 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.