When was the first Space Shuttle launch?

NASA’s Space Shuttle was the first reusable crewed spacecraft designed to fly regularly into orbit. Its first mission, STS-1, launched from Kennedy Space Center on 12 April 1981, exactly 20 years after Yuri Gagarin became the first person in space. Astronauts John Young and Robert Crippen flew Columbia for 37 orbits over about two days before gliding to a landing in California. The shuttle programme went on to fly 135 missions, launching the Hubble Space Telescope and helping build the International Space Station. It ended with Atlantis’s final landing in July 2011.