KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. -- Two GetAway Special (GAS) experiments SEM-06 (left) and MARS (right), part of the payload on mission STS-101, are seen here in the payload bay of Space Shuttle Atlantis prior to door closure. The SEM program is student-developed, focusing on the science of zero-gravity and microgravity. Selected student experiments on this sixth venture are testing the effects of space on Idaho tubers, seeds, paint, yeast, film, liquids, electronics and magnetic chips. MARS is the name for part of the KSC Space Life Sciences Outreach Program. It includes 20 participating schools (ranging from elementary to high school) from all over the nation and one in Canada who have been involved in KSC Space Life Sciences projects over the past seven years. The MARS payload has 20 tubes filled with materials for various classroom investigations designed by the MARS schools. The primary mission of STS-101 is to deliver logistics and supplies to the International Space Station, plus prepare the Station for the arrival of the Zvezda Service Module, expected to be launched by Russia in July 2000. The crew will conduct one space walk to perform maintenance on the Space Station. This will be the third assembly flight for the Space Station. STS-101 is scheduled to launch April 24 at 4:15 p.m. from Launch Pad 39A KSC-00pp0489

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.

Space Shuttle Atlantis was a space shuttle that was operated by NASA as part of the Space Shuttle program. It was the fourth operational shuttle built, and the last one to be built before the program was retired in 2011. Atlantis was named after the first research vessel operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and it made its first flight in October 1985. Over the course of its career, Atlantis completed 33 missions and spent a total of 307 days in space. Its last mission was STS-135, which was the final mission of the Space Shuttle program. Atlantis is now on display at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida. Space Shuttle Atlantis (Orbiter Vehicle Designation: OV-104) was one of the four first operational orbiters in the Space Shuttle fleet of NASA, the space agency of the United States. (The other two are Discovery and Endeavour.) Atlantis was the fourth operational shuttle built. Atlantis is named after a two-masted sailing ship that operated from 1930 to 1966 for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. Atlantis performed well in 25 years of service, flying 33 missions.