First appearence of OV-101 'Enterprise'[1]
Space Shuttle Enterprise OV-101 is a glider that was originally planned to be a spaceflight capable spaceplane. It is an atmospheric flight test article for testing the atmospheric capabilities of the NASA Space Transportation System (STS) Orbital Vehicles (OVs), aka the original operational American space shuttles, the OV-100 series. OV-101 was originally called Constitution, until a write-in campaign by Star Trek fans renamed the ship as "Enterprise" after the fictional starship from the TV show.[N 1]
Enterprise is the only initial run of test full-up shuttles to survive the NASA STS program, the other two, OV-102 Columbia, and OV-099 Challenger, were both destroyed. Otherwise, only flight-unworthy articles of the build and test era survive, OV-098 Pathfinder and the mockup OV-100 Explorer.
Enterprise currently resides at the Intrepid Air & Space Museum in New York City.
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- ↑ Unfortunately, this prevented the use of the name Enterprise by a space capable orbiter