) | any of several U.S. space vehicles consisting of a reusable manned orbiter that touches down on a landing strip after an orbital mission, two reusable solid rocket boosters that drop off after initial ascent, and an expendable external tank containing liquid propellants. |
| space shuttle n. A reusable spacecraft with wings for controlled descent in the atmosphere, designed to transport astronauts between Earth and an orbiting space station and also used to deploy and retrieve satellites. |
A vehicle built by NASA that is capable of taking off from Earth, carrying a crew and a cargo into space, and returning to Earth to be used again. It is used primarily to transport a crew to an orbiting space station and to deploy and retrieve satellites.
Note: The space shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after liftoff in 1986. All seven crew members died in the accident.