The first winged flight into space and back was the Space Shuttle Columbia's mission STS-1, which launched on April 12, 1981.

While the Soviet Union had launched unmanned spacecraft with wings before, Columbia was the first winged vehicle to carry humans into space and return to Earth for a landing on a runway.

It was a momentous occasion, marking the beginning of a new era in space exploration and demonstrating the feasibility of reusable spacecraft.