CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – STS-128 Launch Director Pete Nickolenko welcomes members of space shuttle Discovery's STS-128 crew to Kennedy Space Center. The crew arrived in a NASA Shuttle Training Aircraft, the modified Gulfstream II jet behind them, at Kennedy's Shuttle Landing Facility at 6:34 p.m. EDT. The astronauts are, from left, Mission Specialists John "Danny" Olivas, Nicole Stott who will remain on the International Space Station as flight engineer for Expedition 20, and Swedish astronaut Christer Fuglesang of the European Space Agency. The crew has returned to Kennedy to prepare for launch on Aug. 25 at 1:36 a.m. EDT. The 13-day mission will deliver a new crew member and 33,000 pounds of equipment to the International Space Station. The equipment includes science and storage racks, a freezer to store research samples, a new sleeping compartment and the COLBERT treadmill. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett KSC-2009-4783

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – STS-128 Launch Director Pete Nickolenko welcomes members of space shuttle Discovery's STS-128 crew to Kennedy Space Center. The crew arrived in a NASA Shuttle Training Aircraft, the modified Gulfstream II jet behind them, at Kennedy's Shuttle Landing Facility at 6:34 p.m. EDT. The astronauts are, from left, Mission Specialists John "Danny" Olivas, Nicole Stott who will remain on the International Space Station as flight engineer for Expedition 20, and Swedish astronaut Christer Fuglesang of the European Space Agency. The crew has returned to Kennedy to prepare for launch on Aug. 25 at 1:36 a.m. EDT. The 13-day mission will deliver a new crew member and 33,000 pounds of equipment to the International Space Station. The equipment includes science and storage racks, a freezer to store research samples, a new sleeping compartment and the COLBERT treadmill. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett KSC-2009-4783

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – STS-128 Launch Director Pete Nickolenko welcomes members of space shuttle Discovery's STS-128 crew to Kennedy Space Center. The crew arrived in a NASA Shuttle Training Aircraft, the modified Gulfstream II jet behind them, at Kennedy's Shuttle Landing Facility at 6:34 p.m. EDT. The astronauts are, from left, Mission Specialists John "Danny" Olivas, Nicole Stott who will remain on the International Space Station as flight engineer for Expedition 20, and Swedish astronaut Christer Fuglesang of the European Space Agency. The crew has returned to Kennedy to prepare for launch on Aug. 25 at 1:36 a.m. EDT. The 13-day mission will deliver a new crew member and 33,000 pounds of equipment to the International Space Station. The equipment includes science and storage racks, a freezer to store research samples, a new sleeping compartment and the COLBERT treadmill. 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.