Space Shuttle Discovery OV-103

Space Shuttle Discovery .

is one of the three currently operational orbiters in the Space Shuttle fleet of NASA, the space agency of the United States.(The other two are Atlantis and Endeavour.) When first flown in 1984, Discovery became the third operational orbiter, and is now the oldest orbiter in service. Discovery has performed both research and International Space Station (ISS) assembly missions.

The spacecraft takes its name from four British ships of exploration named Discovery, primarily HMS Discovery, one of the ships commanded by Captain James Cook during his third and final major voyage, 1776–1779.

Others include Henry Hudson's Discovery, which he used in 1610–1611 to search for a Northwest Passage; the HMS Discovery, one of the ships which took Captain George Nares' British Arctic Expedition of 1875–1876 to the North Pole; and RRS Discovery, a Royal Geographical Society research vessel which, under the command of Captain Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton, was the main ship of the 1901–1904 "Discovery Expedition" to Antarctica.

The latter vessel is still preserved as a museum.