US-Space/ CHRONOLOGY: Shuttle's 30-year space adventure

Jul 4, 2011, 2:07 GMT

Washington - The final space shuttle flight is scheduled for July 8, bringing an end to the longest chapter in US space history. Highlights of the 30-year-old shuttle programme include:

*** br - 1969: Space Task Group recommends development of a new spacecraft.

- 1972: President Richard Nixon approves development of the space shuttle.

- 1976: The Enterprise, a test version of the shuttle, debuts and test flights begin. Enterprise never flies in space, but is used in a total of 13 test flights.

- April 12, 1981: Space shuttle Columbia makes first shuttle flight into space from Florida's Kennedy Space Centre.

- April 1983: Space shuttle Challenger makes first flight; first spacewalk by a shuttle crew.

- November 1982: Columbia becomes first shuttle flight to deploy commercial communications satellites.

- April 1983: Shuttle Challenger is first shuttle to deploy a satellite.

- June 1983: Sally Ride becomes first US woman in space.

- November 1983: First use of Spacelab, an in-flight research lab, aboard the shuttle Columbia.

- August 1984: Discovery makes first flight.

- October 1985: Atlantis makes first flight.

- January 1986: Challenger disaster. The space shuttle explodes less than two minutes after take off, killing all seven crew members.

- June 1986: Investigative panel concludes faulty O-rings in Challenger's solid rocket booster caused explosion.

- September 1988: Shuttle flights resume.

- May 1989: Atlantis deploys Magellan/Venus radar mapper.

- 1998: Final year that spacelab is carried aloft on a shuttle.

- October 1989: Galileo spacecraft launched toward Jupiter from Atlantis.

- April 1990: Shuttle Discovery deploys Hubble Space Telescope.

- October 1990: Discovery deploys European Space Agency's Ulysses spacecraft to explore polar regions of sun.

- April 1991: Atlantis launches Gamma Ray Observatory telescope.

- May 1992: Shuttle Endeavour, built to replace Challenger, makes its first flight.

- December 1993: First Hubble repair mission.

- February 1994: First flight of Russian cosmonaut aboard the shuttle.

- June 1995: First shuttle docking with the Russian space station Mir.

- February 1997: Second Hubble repair mission.

- December 1988: Endeavour brings first US element to new International Space Station.

- July 1999: Columbia deploys Chandra X-ray Observatory telescope.

- December 1999: Third Hubble repair mission.

- March 2002: Fourth Hubble repair mission.

- February 2003: Columbia disintegrates on re-entry into Earth's atmosphere, killing all seven aboard.

- August 2003: Investigative panel concludes foam insulation damaged the heat shield of Columbia, causing the accident. NASA begins detailed inspection of heat shield on each shuttle mission, with new equipment.

- July 2005: Shuttle flights resume with Discovery flight to International Space Station.

- May 2009: Fifth and final upgrade mission to Hubble.

- February-March 2011: Final Discovery mission.

- May 2011: Final Endeavour mission, bringing last components of the International Space Station.