Media Platforms Design Team"People don’t recognize what an incredible piece of equipment and engineering the space shuttle was," says Mae Jemison, an astronaut who flew on Endeavour in 1992. “The magic left after the Challenger disaster. We started thinking it’s dangerous and stopped thinking we could do difficult things.” Atlantis is scheduled to perform the final mission, resupplying the International Space Station (ISS). NASA will then buy seats on Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft to get astronauts into orbit; U.S. private companies have been tapped to deliver cargo to the ISS.Fleet:5 Space Planes—Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and EndeavourFirst Delivered:March 1979, ColumbiaExpected Launches:500Actual Launches:135Total Flight Time (as of January 2011):1289 days, 36 minutes, 29 secondsShuttles Lost:2 (Challenger, 1986; Columbia, 2003) Total Passengers/Crew:836Rollbacks from Launchpad:19Reason for Delay:Mechanical: 10 Weather: 5Payload: 2Bird Damage: 1Hail Damage: 1Fatalities:14Failure Rate:1 in every 67.5 missionsRate of Liquid Fuel Consumption During Takeoff:45,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen per minute 17,000 gallons of liquid oxygen per minuteRate of Solid Fuel Consumption During Takeoff:660,000 pounds per minute Speed in Orbit:17,500 mph G-Force at Launch:3 G’s Time to Orbit:8.5 minutes Landing Speed at Touchdown:220 MPH
