Space Shuttle Discovery (Orbiter Vehicle Designation: OV-103) is one of the three sensors currently in operation in the shuttle fleet of NASA, the U.S. space agency. (The other two are the Atlanti s and Endeavour.)
When first flown in 1984, the Discovery ship became operational in third place, and is now the oldest ship in service. Discovery has done the research and assembly missions of the International Space Station (ISS).
The spacecraft is named after the previous ships of exploration called Discovery, mainly HMS Discovery, the sailing ship that accompanied famous explorer James Cook on his third and last major tour. Others include Henry Hudson's ship Discovery which he used in 1610-1611 to search for a Northwest Passage, and RRS Discovery, a vessel used for expeditions to Antarctica in 1901-1904 by Scott and Shackleton (and still preserved as a museum).
Discovery was the shuttle that launched the Hubble Space Telescope. The missions of second and third Hubble service were also carried by Discovery. She has also launched the Ulysses probe and three TDRS satellites. Discovery has been elected twice as the ship back flight, first in 1988 as the spacecraft flight after the Challenger disaster in 1986, and then for two-way return to flight missions in July 2005 and July 2006 after the Columbia disaster in 2003. Discovery also carried Project Mercury in the astronaut John Glenn, who was 77, into space during STS-95 mission on October 29, 1998, making it the largest human venture into space.
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