Sorry you aren’t getting much response here. The Wikipedia article on the space shuttle is pretty good:

There are a few types of shuttle flights, transporting satellites to and from orbit, science missions, repair missions, and space station construction missions.

The primary goal of the shuttle program was for the vehicle to be used as a ’space truck’ and simply place satellites into orbit. The shuttle can also retrieve satellites and bring them back to earth for repair. The robotic arm in the payload bay is meant to take payloads out of the shuttle or put them back in:

Although other vehicles can put satellites and people into space, the shuttle is the only system that can bring them back.

The shuttle can also perform science missions such as the large Spacelab module:

The idea was to perform experiments in a low-gravity environment. Another type of science mission was the LDEF experiment:

It was put into orbit by the shuttle and retrieved a few years later. The last flight of Columbia carried a number of scientists and science payloads. Since the shuttle can carry seven astronauts, five of them can be civilian scientists while two are usually ex-military jet pilots who actually know how to fly the vehicle.

The shuttle can also perform repair missions. When it was first launched, the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) had a problem with its mirrors and optics. Astronauts were able to return to the HST and install new equipment to repair the telescope:

There is another service mission planned for later this year and it will probably be the last non-ISS related mission for the shuttle.

Finally, the shuttle is used to build the International Space Station (ISS). These are the missions that have been flown most often over the last ten years or so.

Giz