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Space Shuttle Orbiter Enterprise, mated to a 15-story-tall external propellant tank and twin inert solid rocket boosters on top of a Mobile Launcher Platform, is rolled back to the Vehicle Assembly Building from Lauch Complex 39's Pad A July 23 at the completion of nearly three months of fit and function checks at the shuttle launch site as part of the exercise designed to help clear the way for the liftoff of its sister ship Columbia. The massive Crawler Transporter began moving its 11 million pound load the 3.5 miles from pad A to the VAB at 10:23 a.m. and reached the doorway to High Bay 1 at 3:48p.m. following serveral days of fit checks of modified extermiable platforms in the assembly bay, the nonlaunchable shuttle will be destacked. Enterprise will be returned to Rockwell International and stripped of parts for integration into orbiter destined for space, while the external tank and solid booster will be returned to their respective prime contractors and refurbished for use on a later shuttle mission. ARC-1980-AC80-0107-18
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Space Shuttle Orbiter Enterprise, mated to a 15-story-tall external propellant tank and twin inert solid rocket boosters on top of a Mobile Launcher Platform, is rolled back to the Vehicle Assembly Building from Lauch Complex 39's Pad A July 23 at the completion of nearly three months of fit and function checks at the shuttle launch site as part of the exercise designed to help clear the way for the liftoff of its sister ship Columbia. The massive Crawler Transporter began moving its 11 million pound load the 3.5 miles from pad A to the VAB at 10:23 a.m. and reached the doorway to High Bay 1 at 3:48p.m. following serveral days of fit checks of modified extermiable platforms in the assembly bay, the nonlaunchable shuttle will be destacked. Enterprise will be returned to Rockwell International and stripped of parts for integration into orbiter destined for space, while the external tank and solid booster will be returned to their respective prime contractors and refurbished for use on a later shuttle mission.
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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