Two T-38 jets with members of the STS-86 crew fly over the space center after takeoff from KSC’s Shuttle Landing Facility. The seven crew members were at KSC to participate in the Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test (TCDT), a dress rehearsal for launch. They are returning to Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas, for final prelaunch training. STS-86 will be the seventh docking of the Space Shuttle with the Russian Space Station Mir. Liftoff aboard Atlantis is targeted for Sept. 25 from Launch Pad 39A KSC-97PC1378

The Space Shuttle program was the United States government's manned launch vehicle program from 1981 to 2011, administered by NASA and officially beginning in 1972. The Space Shuttle system—composed of an orbiter launched with two reusable solid rocket boosters and a disposable external fuel tank— carried up to eight astronauts and up to 50,000 lb (23,000 kg) of payload into low Earth orbit (LEO). When its mission was complete, the orbiter would re-enter the Earth's atmosphere and lands as a glider. Although the concept had been explored since the late 1960s, the program formally commenced in 1972 and was the focus of NASA's manned operations after the final Apollo and Skylab flights in the mid-1970s. It started with the launch of the first shuttle Columbia on April 12, 1981, on STS-1. and finished with its last mission, STS-135 flown by Atlantis, in July 2011.

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