Space flight chronology

1982
IBM equipment supports three successful flights of Space Shuttle Columbia.

1983
The Space Shuttle Challenger makes its first flight. IBM computers guide the orbiter throughout the mission. Challenger flies ten times through 1986.

1984
The Space Shuttle Discovery makes its first flight, and IBM computers guide the orbiter throughout the mission.

1985
IBM computers guide the Space Shuttle Atlantis on its first flight.

1991
Upgraded IBM AP-101S flight computers make their maiden flight aboard Atlantis. By the middle of the year, AP-101S computers completely replace the Shuttle’s original flight computers -- the AP-101Bs -- which are retired.

1992
The Space Shuttle Endeavour makes its first flight using IBM computers to guide the orbiter through its mission.

1993
The IBM ThinkPad 750C becomes the first modern notebook computer to fly in space, as part of the Space Shuttle Endeavour's mission to refurbish the Hubble Telescope. The mission marks the first time a color notebook computer has flown in the microgravity environment of a low Earth orbit, and is the first space flight of a 486-type processor.

1994
The IBM ThinkPad 755C is selected to become the new standard Space Shuttle Payload and General Support Computer (PGSC) for astronaut and experiment use.

1995
An IBM ThinkPad 750C computer flies to the Russian space station Mir to support the NASA Shuttle/Mir program

1997
NASA's Pathfinder, equipped with IBM RS/6000 technology for its onboard computer, lands on Mars. (The flight computer is responsible for more than 100 pyro events, including deploying the parachutes, inflating the airbags and firing the retro rockets that allow Pathfinder to land safely.)

The Space Shuttle carries 11 ThinkPads into Earth orbit. Combined, the ThinkPads can process more than a half billion instruments per second. The IBM ThinkPad 760XD is selected to become the new standard PGSC. It is also selected as the new Portable Computer System (PCS) for the upcoming International Space Station (ISS) after initial flights are flown using the ThinkPad 760ED

1998
IBM ThinkPads are deployed on John Glenn's historic return to space. This is also the first flight of the ThinkPad 760XD.

IBM ThinkPad 760ED computers are used to command and control the International Space Station shortly after the first two ISS modules are in orbit.

For more detailed information:
	Space Shuttle Columbia
	Space Shuttle Endeavour's
	Pathfinder
	John Glenn's historic return to space