Delivery of Space Shuttle Columbia

Date: March 25, 1979 • Location: Merritt Island, United States

The first fully functional Space Shuttle orbiter, Columbia, is delivered to the John F. Kennedy Space Center to be prepared for its first launch.

The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system that went to the ISS and performed other orbital missions. 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 the Space Transportation System (STS), taken from the 1969 plan led by U.S. vice president Spiro Agnew for a system of reusable spacecraft where it was the only item funded for development.