The first Space Shuttle, Columbia, launched into orbit
On this day · 12 April 1981
On April 12, 1981—exactly 20 years after Gagarin—Columbia became the first reusable spacecraft to fly, carrying two astronauts to orbit.
On April 12, 1981, at 7:00 a.m. EST, Space Shuttle Columbia thundered off Launch Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center on mission STS-1. Aboard were veteran astronaut John W. Young and rookie pilot Robert L. Crippen—the first crew ever to ride an untested spacecraft on its maiden flight, and the first Americans launched since 1975.
The date was no accident’s coincidence with history: it fell exactly 20 years after Yuri Gagarin’s first human spaceflight. Columbia was something genuinely new—a winged orbiter designed to launch like a rocket but land like a plane, then fly again.
The two-day shakedown flight circled Earth 37 times before gliding home.
Columbia touched down on a dry lakebed at Edwards Air Force Base on April 14, 1981, proving the reusable shuttle concept worked. The program would go on to fly 135 missions over three decades.
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