Space Shuttle Discovery launched the Hubble Space Telescope and conducted the second and third Hubble service missions.
It also launched the Ulysses probe and three TDRS satellites. Twice Discovery was chosen as the "Return To Flight" Orbiter, first in 1988 after the loss of Challenger in 1986
and then again for the twin "Return To Flight" missions in July 2005 and July 2006 after the Columbia disaster in 2003.
Project Mercury astronaut John Glenn, who was 77 at the time, flew with Discovery on STS-95 in 1998, making him the oldest person to go into space at that time in history.
Had plans to launch United States Department of Defense payloads from Vandenberg Air Force Base gone ahead, Discovery would have become the dedicated US Air Force shuttle.
Its first West Coast mission, STS-62-A, was scheduled for 1986, but canceled in the aftermath of the Challenger disaster.
Discovery was retired after completing its final mission, STS-133 on March 9, 2011.
The spacecraft is now on display in Virginia at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, an annex of the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum.