KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. -- In high bay 1 of the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, the suspended external tank is lowered between the solid rocket boosters, or SRBs, installed on the mobile launcher platform. The tank will be mated with the boosters for launch. Work to remove and replace the feed-through connector on the external tank will be done in parallel with integrated ET/SRB testing in preparation for space shuttle Endeavour to join the stack later in January. The STS-123 mission is targeted for launch on Endeavour in mid-March. The 25th assembly flight to the International Space Station, Endeavour's payload includes the Japanese Experiment Logistics Module Pressurized Section. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett KSC-08pd0032

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Inside Orbiter Processing Facility-1 at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, one of the two payload bay doors on space shuttle Atlantis is closed in preparation for its move to the Vehicle Assembly Building. The work is part of the Space Shuttle Program’s transition and retirement processing of the space shuttle fleet. A groundbreaking was held Jan. 18 for Atlantis’ future home, a 65,000-square-foot exhibit hall in Shuttle Plaza at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. Atlantis is scheduled to roll over to the visitor complex in November in preparation for the exhibit’s grand opening in July 2013. For more information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/shuttle. Photo credit: NASA/Dimitri Gerondidakis KSC-2012-3479

s133E010016 - STS-133 - Public domain NASA photogrpaph

Fly-around view of the ISS by the STS-127 crew

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – In the Vehicle Assembly Building's transfer aisle at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, an overhead crane lowers the Ares I-X aft center booster segment toward the aft booster and skirt in High Bay 3. Part of the Constellation Program, the Ares I-X is the test vehicle for the Ares I, which is the essential core of a space transportation system that eventually will carry crewed missions back to the moon, on to Mars and out into the solar system . The flight test of the Ares I-X is targeted for no earlier than Aug. 30. Photo credit: NASA/Tim Jacobs KSC-2009-3950

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- In the transfer aisle of the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, crane operators and technicians practice de-stacking operations on a full-size mock-up of the Orion spacecraft and launch abort system in order to keep processing procedures and skills current. Orion is the exploration spacecraft designed to carry crews to space beyond low Earth orbit. It will provide emergency abort capability, sustain the crew during the space travel and provide safe re-entry from deep space return velocities. Orion’s first unpiloted test flight is scheduled to launch in 2014 atop a Delta IV rocket. A second uncrewed flight test is scheduled for 2017 on NASA’s Space Launch System rocket. For more information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/orion. Photo credit: NASA/Jim Grossmann KSC-2013-2854

S127E011065 - STS-127 - Control Panel in the aft FD of STS-127 Endeavour

Kim Shiflett KSC-08pd0032

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KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. -- In high bay 1 of the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, the suspended external tank is lowered between the solid rocket boosters, or SRBs, installed on the mobile launcher platform. The tank will be mated with the boosters for launch. Work to remove and replace the feed-through connector on the external tank will be done in parallel with integrated ET/SRB testing in preparation for space shuttle Endeavour to join the stack later in January. The STS-123 mission is targeted for launch on Endeavour in mid-March. The 25th assembly flight to the International Space Station, Endeavour's payload includes the Japanese Experiment Logistics Module Pressurized Section. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett

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.