Take a look at the biggest, best and most prolific launch vehicles to have reached space, from the early days of space exploration to the modern day

Written by Jonathan

1 Solid rocket boosters

Two solid propellant boosters generated thrust of 1.2 million kilograms.

3 Orbiter

Each orbiter was 37 metres (121 feet) long, with a wingspan of 24 metres (78 feet) .

4 Crew quarters

The crew were housed in the front of the orbiter, the payload in the middle and the engines in the aft.

2 Main engines

The main engines used a mixture of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen to generate thrust of up to 213,188 kilograms.

5 External tank

The external tank, for fuel storage, was the only part of the Shuttle that wasn’t reused.

Manufacturer: United Space Alliance/ATK/Lockheed Martin/Boeing Dates: 12 April 1981 to 21 July 2011 Total launches: 135 Successes: 133 Height: 56.1 metres (184.2 feet) Max payload: 24,950 kilograms Total mass: 2 million kilograms Notable payloads: Hubble Space Telescope, Galileo, ISS modules

SPACE SHUTTLE

The world’s first reusable launch system

The Space Shuttle remains one of the most controversial spacecraft ever flown. While its awesome power and practical reusability were plain for all to see, a high cost and two devastating tragedies meant it was constantly under criticism. When the Shuttle program, officially called the Space Transportation System (STS), was stopped in 2011, it was therefore met with a mixture of sadness at seeing the vehicle retired, but also optimism for a new safer era of launchers.

Conceived in the 1960s and 1970s as a means to reach space regularly and reasonably, the Space Shuttle was in reality blighted by budget overruns and delays. When operational flights began in 1982 it was already proving expensive, but NASA made the most of the situation and cemented the Space Shuttle as its primary method of taking humans, cargo, satellites, probes and more into orbit.

This launcher was unique. Two solid rocket boosters were strapped to a central fuel tank, which worked in tandem with engines on the orbiter itself to get the vehicle to its lofty destination. While the main fuel tank was discarded in the upper atmosphere, the solid rocket boosters were recovered from the ocean to be used again – one of the first instances of rocket reusability. The orbiter itself was also reused. Six Space Shuttle orbiters were built in total, although one, Enterprise, was only used for testing and never entered space.

Technically, if you count the orbiter as a payload rather than a rocket, the STS is the closest challenger to the Saturn V for the most powerful retired rocket ever to have been launched. The maximum takeoff weight of a Shuttle orbiter – including the orbiter, fuel and a payload – was around 109,000 kilograms, with about 25,000 kilograms of that taken up by the useful payload. It was capable of taking cargo in its payload bay into low-Earth orbit (LEO), which could then be fired into orbit. It launched a huge number of well-known spacecraft, satellites, probes, telescopes and more. These include the Hubble Space Telescope, the Jupiter-orbiting Galileo spacecraft and many of the modules for the International Space Station.