CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – STS-125 Mission Specialist Michael Good puts on his launch-and-entry suit before heading for Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This launch will be Good's first space shuttle flight. Liftoff is scheduled for 2:01 p.m. May 11 EDT. Atlantis' 11-day flight will include five spacewalks to refurbish and upgrade NASA's Hubble Space Telescope with state-of-the-art science instruments that will expand Hubble's capabilities and extend its operational lifespan through at least 2014. The payload includes a Wide Field Camera 3, fine guidance sensor and the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett KSC-2009-3043

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.