NASA's first return-to-flight mission after the Columbia disaster was STS-114. Space Shuttle Discovery launched on July 26, 2005, beginning the program's first crewed flight since Columbia was lost during reentry on February 1, 2003.
STS-114 was designated International Space Station Assembly Flight LF1. Commander Eileen Collins led a seven-person crew that inspected Discovery's heat shield, tested improved safety procedures, and delivered supplies to the station. Astronaut Stephen Robinson also performed an important spacewalk to remove protruding gap fillers from the orbiter's underside.
The mission lasted 13 days, 21 hours, 32 minutes, and 48 seconds, ending with a landing at Edwards Air Force Base on August 9, 2005. A common mix-up is STS-121: that Discovery mission was also a post-Columbia return-to-flight mission, but it flew in July 2006. STS-26, meanwhile, was the first shuttle mission after the Challenger disaster in 1988.