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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Xenon lights over Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida compete with the lightning strike seen to the left. Space shuttle Discovery is on the pad waiting for a scheduled liftoff on the STS-128 mission. Launch was scrubbed due to the weather conditions that violated the limitations for liftoff. Another launch attempt was scheduled for 1:10 a.m. Aug. 26. Discovery's 13-day mission will deliver more than 7 tons of supplies, science racks and equipment, as well as additional environmental hardware to sustain six crew members on the International Space Station. The equipment includes a freezer to store research samples, a new sleeping compartment and the COLBERT treadmill. The mission is the 128th in the Space Shuttle Program, the 37th flight of Discovery and the 30th station assembly flight. Photo credit: NASA/Ben Cooper KSC-2009-4839
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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Xenon lights over Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida compete with the lightning strike seen to the left. Space shuttle Discovery is on the pad waiting for a scheduled liftoff on the STS-128 mission. Launch was scrubbed due to the weather conditions that violated the limitations for liftoff. Another launch attempt was scheduled for 1:10 a.m. Aug. 26. Discovery's 13-day mission will deliver more than 7 tons of supplies, science racks and equipment, as well as additional environmental hardware to sustain six crew members on the International Space Station. The equipment includes a freezer to store research samples, a new sleeping compartment and the COLBERT treadmill. The mission is the 128th in the Space Shuttle Program, the 37th flight of Discovery and the 30th station assembly flight. Photo credit: NASA/Ben Cooper
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.
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