KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. -- A T-38 jet aircraft carrying the Orbiter Experiment Support System (OEX) recorder from Columbia arrives at the Shuttle Landing Facility. Search teams near Hemphill, Texas, recovered the recorder, which stores sensor information about temperature, aerodynamic pressure, vibrations and other data from dozens of sensor locations on the orbiter, operating only during launch and re-entry. The OEX uses magnetic tape to record data that is not sent to the ground by telemetry. KSC-03pd0826

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.