Space Shuttle Columbia: Difference between revisions - Wikipedia

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''Columbia'''s career would have started to wind down after [[STS-118]]. It was to service the [[Hubble Space Telescope]] two more times between 2004 and 2005. Following the ''Columbia'' accident, NASA flew the [[STS-125]] mission using ''[[Space Shuttle Atlantis|Atlantis]]'', combining the planned fourth and fifth servicing missions into one final mission to Hubble. Because of the retirement of the Space Shuttle fleet, the batteries and gyroscopes that keep the telescope pointed will eventually fail, which would result in its reentry and break-up in Earth's atmosphere. A "Soft Capture Docking Mechanism", based on the docking adapter that was to be used on the [[Orion (Constellation program)|Orion spacecraft]], was installed during the last servicing mission in anticipation of this event.

''Columbia'' was scheduled to launch the [[NASA X-38|X-38]] V-201 Crew Return Vehicle prototype as the next mission after STS-118, until the cancellation of the project in 2002.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Near the flying time|last=Ion.|first=Petrescu, Florian|date=2011|publisher=Lulu Com|isbn=978-1447752813|location=[Place of publication not identified]|pages=522|oclc=941886670}}{{self-published source|date=February 2020}}</ref>{{self-published inline|date=February 2020}}

==Flights==