CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Media representatives participate in a Now and Future Tour at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Here, they make a stop at the Launch Pad 39B, which is being restructured for future use. Its new design will feature a "clean pad" for rockets to come with their own launcher, making it more versatile for a number of vehicles. Leading the tour is Jose Perez-Morales, NASA's pad B project manager. Other stops along the tour included Orbiter Processing Facility-2 (OPF-2) and the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF). OPF-2 is where shuttle Discovery is being prepared for future public display at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va. The SLF's runway could be used for private companies and government agencies to host a diversity of launch systems, including orbital and suborbital flights. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett KSC-2011-3149

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- At Space Launch Complex 41, a crane is attached to the nose of the Atlas payload fairing enclosing the Juno spacecraft in preparation for its lift to the top of the Atlas rocket stacked in the Vertical Integration Facility. The spacecraft was prepared for launch in the Astrotech Space Operations' payload processing facility in Titusville, Fla. The fairing will protect the spacecraft from the impact of aerodynamic pressure and heating during ascent and will be jettisoned once the spacecraft is outside the Earth's atmosphere. Juno is scheduled to launch Aug. 5 aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The solar-powered spacecraft will orbit Jupiter's poles 33 times to find out more about the gas giant's origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere and investigate the existence of a solid planetary core. For more information, visit www.nasa.gov/juno. Photo credit: NASA/Cory Huston KSC-2011-6049

STS-135 - LAUNCH - Public domain NASA photogrpaph

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Media representatives participate in a Now and Future Tour at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Here, they make a stop at the Launch Pad 39B, which is being restructured for future use. Its new design will feature a "clean pad" for rockets to come with their own launcher, making it more versatile for a number of vehicles. Leading the tour is Jose Perez-Morales, NASA's pad B project manager. Other stops along the tour included Orbiter Processing Facility-2 (OPF-2) and the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF). OPF-2 is where shuttle Discovery is being prepared for future public display at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va. The SLF's runway could be used for private companies and government agencies to host a diversity of launch systems, including orbital and suborbital flights. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett KSC-2011-3149

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Summary

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Media representatives participate in a Now and Future Tour at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Here, they make a stop at the Launch Pad 39B, which is being restructured for future use. Its new design will feature a "clean pad" for rockets to come with their own launcher, making it more versatile for a number of vehicles. Leading the tour is Jose Perez-Morales, NASA's pad B project manager. Other stops along the tour included Orbiter Processing Facility-2 (OPF-2) and the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF). OPF-2 is where shuttle Discovery is being prepared for future public display at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va. The SLF's runway could be used for private companies and government agencies to host a diversity of launch systems, including orbital and suborbital flights. 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.