In the aerospace context, "Columbia" is the name of a space shuttle orbiter, which was part of the NASA Space Shuttle program. Columbia was the first space-rated orbiter in NASA's fleet and was also the first of the two orbiters to be built.
It was first launched on April 12, 1981, and completed 27 missions before its tragic loss during re-entry on February 1, 2003.
Some examples of Columbia's missions include:
-
STS-1: Columbia's maiden flight, which launched on April 12, 1981, and marked the first time a reusable spacecraft was used for a manned mission
-
STS-9: This mission, which launched on November 28, 1983, carried the first Spacelab module, which was a European-built laboratory that was flown in the shuttle's payload bay
-
STS-61-C: This mission launched on January 12, 1986, and was the first time a minority astronaut (Guion Bluford) flew in space
-
STS-109: This mission, which launched on March 1, 2002, was the final successful mission of Columbia. It was a servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope
The Columbia was a tragic end of its service during the STS-107 mission, where the crew of seven were all lost during re-entry due to a failure in the wing's heat shield. NASA's Space Shuttle program was grounded for more than two years following the accident, and several changes in the design, operations, and management were implemented before the program resumed with the successful return to flight of STS-114 mission in July 2005.