Discovery
Orbiter OV-103
See also
Space Transportation System and
space shuttle
This orbiter is currently active.
Entered service August 30, 1984.
Flights:
STS-41D 08/30/84
STS-51A 11/08/84
STS-51C 01/24/85
STS-51D 04/12/85
STS-51G 06/17/85
STS-51I 08/27/85
STS-26 09/29/88
STS-29 03/13/89
STS-33 11/22/89
STS-31 04/24/90
STS-41 10/06/90
STS-39 04/28/91
STS-48 09/12/91
STS-42 01/22/92
STS-53 12/02/92
STS-56 04/08/93
STS-51 09/12/93
STS-60 02/03/94
STS-64 09/09/94
STS-63 02/03/95
STS-70 07/13/95
STS-82 02/11/97
STS-85 08/07/97
STS-91 06/02/98
STS-95 10/29/98
STS-96 05/27/99
STS-103 12/19/99
STS-92 10/11/00
STS-102 03/08/01
Discovery was the third active
orbiter in the
fleet.
Discovery was also the first
orbiter built with design enhancements learned from previous
vehicles.
Enterprise was a test vehicle, and so had no
predecessors,
Columbia was the first active
orbiter, and
Challenger was built from a modified static test article. Discovery, however, was built completely new after these initial
vessels, and was able to take advantage of several design improvements. One of the results of this is that Discovery weighed in at 6,870
pounds less than
Columbia at
rollout.
Discovery was one of two
orbiters to be modified to carry a
Centaur launch vehicle upper stage in its
payload bay. This involved adding extra
fuel piping into the bay, since the
Centaur upper stage has a
liquid-fuel rocket engine, as well as controls in the
aft deck to control and monitor the
rocket.
Challenger was the other
orbiter with this modification. This has since been deemed to risky and there are no plans to use this functionality.
At the time of this writing, Discovery is awaiting launch STS-105, scheduled for August 9, 2001.
The rest of the orbiter fleet:
Enterprise *
Columbia *
Challenger *
Atlantis *
Endeavour