KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. - In the transfer aisle of the Vehicle Assembly Building, workers prepare the cover, called the "manhole," on the bottom of external tank number 119 that will be refoamed. The manhole was removed to access the area where the tank's four liquid hydrogen engine cutoff sensors were replaced. The tank is being prepared to launch Space Shuttle Discovery on mission STS-121 in July. Photo credit: NASA/Jim Grossmann KSC-06pd0610

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.