CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- A closeup of the replacement weather Doppler radar being installed in a remote field located west of NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The tower is 100 feet high; the radome is 22 feet in diameter, the antenna 14 feet in diameter. It rotates at 6 rpm. The structure can withstand 130 mph winds. It is undergoing initial testing and expected to become operational in the summer. The weather radar is essential in issuing lightning and other severe weather warnings and vital in evaluating lightning launch commit criteria for space shuttle and rocket launches. Photo credit: NASA/Troy Cryder KSC-2009-1079

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.