Before Space Shuttle Columbia could fly to space they needed to know that it would fly like a glider so that it could be landed. Learning how to fly was the primary mission of Enterprise, the first space shuttle which was unveiled in 1976 and named after the fictional Starship Enterprise (which was itself named after the real USS Enterprise.....).

There were years of modelling, testing in wind tunnels and development of the design, but it would take full scale tests to demonstrate that the Shuttle could really fly like a glider. The Approach and Landing tests confirmed the predictions of the models and demonstrated the software for the flight control system was robust enough to commit to Columbia's orbital flight.

Composite view of STS-3 landing by Retro Space HD
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