KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. - NASA managers brief the media about the Space Shuttle Program and mission STS-121 from the press site at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Public Information Officer Jessica Rye moderated. Seated at her right are Space Shuttle Program Manager Wayne Hale, NASA Launch Director Mike Leinbach and STS-114 External Tank Tiger Team lead Tim Wilson, with the NASA Engineering & Safety Center. Photo credit: NASA/Jack Pfaller KSC-06pd0376

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – News media participate in the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) prelaunch news conference held in the NASA Press Site auditorium at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. On the dais, panelist from left are Ed Weiler, NASA associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate; Tim Dunn, NASA launch director for the agency’s Launch Services Program; Vernon Thorp, program manager, NASA Missions, United Launch Alliance; David Lehman, GRAIL project manager, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory; John Henk, GRAIL program manager, Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, Colo.; and Joel Tumbiolo, launch weather officer, 45th Weather Squadron, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. GRAIL is scheduled to launch Sept. 8 aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta II Heavy rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. GRAIL will fly twin spacecraft in tandem around the moon to precisely measure and map variations in the moon's gravitational field. The mission will provide the most accurate global gravity field to date for any planet, including Earth. This detailed information will reveal differences in the density of the moon's crust and mantle and will help answer fundamental questions about the moon's internal structure, thermal evolution, and history of collisions with asteroids. The aim is to map the moon's gravity field so completely that future moon vehicles can safely navigate anywhere on the moon’s surface. For more information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/grail. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett KSC-2011-6753

Endeavour on approach to ISS for mission STS-111 UF2 / Expedition Four

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- In high bay 4 of the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, work is under way to stack the Ares I-X upper stage simulator segment 5 to segment 4. The upper stage simulator comprises 11 segments, each approximately 18 feet in diameter, that will be used in the test flight known as Ares I-X in 2009. The simulator segments will simulate the mass and the outer mold line. The upper stage accounts for nearly one-quarter of the total height of the Ares I. It will take the Ares I on the second phase of its journey from Earth, providing the guidance, navigation and control needed for the second phase of the Ares I ascent flight. Photo credit: NASA/Jim Grossmann KSC-08pd3989

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. -- Former astronaut James Lovell, who was commander of the Apollo 13 mission, addresses the audience at KSC's Apollo/Saturn V Center during the dinner celebration of the 40th anniversary of American spaceflight. Lovell served as host of the celebration KSC-02pd0193

DR. GEORGE FRASER SPEAKS AT THE BLACK HISTORY MONTH COMMEMORATIO

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. - NASA managers brief the media about the Space Shuttle Program and mission STS-121 from the press site at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Public Information Officer Jessica Rye moderated. Seated at her right are Space Shuttle Program Manager Wayne Hale, NASA Launch Director Mike Leinbach and STS-114 External Tank Tiger Team lead Tim Wilson, with the NASA Engineering & Safety Center. Photo credit: NASA/Jack Pfaller KSC-06pd0376

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KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. - NASA managers brief the media about the Space Shuttle Program and mission STS-121 from the press site at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Public Information Officer Jessica Rye moderated. Seated at her right are Space Shuttle Program Manager Wayne Hale, NASA Launch Director Mike Leinbach and STS-114 External Tank Tiger Team lead Tim Wilson, with the NASA Engineering & Safety Center. Photo credit: NASA/Jack Pfaller

Space Shuttle Program

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.