SOLAR SYSTEM

Detailed explanation-1: -In the early morning hours of April 12, 1981, NASA launched is first Space Transportation System, or space shuttle, mission, carrying astronauts John Young and Robert Crippen into orbit.

Detailed explanation-2: -The STS-1 mission roared off Launch Pad 39A, on April 12, 1981, at 7 a.m., carrying Commander John Young and Pilot Robert Crippen into an Earth-orbital mission scheduled to last for 54 hours.

Detailed explanation-3: -When space shuttle Columbia took to the skies on its maiden voyage on April 12, 1981, a new era of spaceflight took wing.

Detailed explanation-4: -Space Shuttle Columbia landed on April 14, 1981 to conclude the first shuttle mission to space. The orbiter landed on the dirt Runway 23 on Rogers Dry Lake, which is adjacent to NASA’s Armstrong (then Dryden) Flight Research Center in Edwards, California.

Detailed explanation-5: -The first human in space was the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, who made one orbit around Earth on April 12, 1961, on a flight that lasted 108 minutes.