Where does this come from, and can I check it?

Five orbiters carried 355 people between 1981 and 2011. The figure is taken from NASA Space Shuttle, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.

Is this really a space fact?

Yes. It sits on the Space shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.

What else can I read about it?

The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.

Mondo Knows Facts

The space shuttle flew 135 missions

Five orbiters carried 355 people between 1981 and 2011 Columbia flew first in April 1981 and the programme ended with Atlantis in July 2011. The fleet launched and serviced the Hubble telescope and assembled most of the International Space Station. Two accidents, Challenger in 1986 and Columbia in 2003, killed 14 astronauts. It sits in Mondo's space collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.

Where this comes from

NASA Space Shuttle

Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.

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Space & Astronomy trivia

More facts like this

Sally Ride became the first American woman in space in 1983She flew on the shuttle Challenger with five crewmates Venus Express circled the planet for nine yearsIt mapped winds, sulphuric acid clouds and the greenhouse far below The Space Shuttle flew 135 missions over 30 yearsFive winged orbiters carried crews and cargo between 1981 and 2011 The Hubble mirror was ground to the wrong shapeA 2.2 micrometre error left every image blurred until astronauts fitted corrective optics Baikonur is the oldest working spaceportSputnik 1 and Yuri Gagarin both launched from the same Kazakh site Medieval observatories measured the sky for centuriesThe Baghdad and Samarkand observatories refined star positions and instruments

Tags: shuttle, history, missions

The space shuttle flew 135 missions: the short answers

Where does this come from, and can I check it?: Five orbiters carried 355 people between 1981 and 2011. The figure is taken from NASA Space Shuttle, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
Is this really a space fact?: Yes. It sits on the Space shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
What else can I read about it?: The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.