CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – At NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, space shuttle Atlantis foreground is towed in to Orbiter Processing Facility-1 after being towed from the Vehicle Assembly Building VAB. Workers will continue to prepare Atlantis for display at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. Meanwhile, space shuttle Discovery is on the move from OPF-1 to the Vehicle Assembly Building VAB. The aft view of Discovery reveals the tail cone that covers the three replica shuttle main engines. The work is part of the Space Shuttle Program’s transition and retirement processing of shuttle Discovery, which is being prepared for display at Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va. Discovery will remain in high bay 4 of the VAB until its scheduled transport atop a NASA Shuttle Carrier Aircraft modified 747 jet to Dulles International Airport in Virginia on April 17. Discovery will then be transported to the Smithsonian on April 19. For more information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/shuttle. Photo credit: NASA/Jim Grossmann KSC-2012-1710

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KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. - The mobile service tower on Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station has been removed from around a Boeing Delta IV rocket as preparations continue to launch the GOES-N satellite. GOES-N is the latest in a series of Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites for NOAA and NASA. A geostationary orbit is one in which a satellite remains in the same position with respect to the rotating Earth. Thus, the satellite hovers continuously over one position on the Earth's surface, appearing stationary. As a result, GOES provide a constant vigil for the atmospheric "triggers" for severe weather conditions such as tornadoes, flash floods, hail storms, and hurricanes. GOES-N is scheduled for launch May 24 in an hour-long window between 6:11 and 7:11 p.m. EDT. Photo credit: NASA/George Shelton KSC-06pd0934

PRELAUNCH - STS-2 - KSC. NASA public domain image colelction.

STS-131 - EOM - Public domain NASA photogrpaph

Saturn 1B space vehicle for ASTP moves from VAB to launch complex

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. -- As the sun crawls from below the horizon at right, Space Shuttle Discovery crawls up Launch Pad 39A and its resting spot next to the fixed service structure (FSS) (seen at left). The powerful silhouette dwarfs people and other vehicles near the FSS. Discovery is scheduled to launch Oct. 5 at 9:30 p.m. EDT on mission STS-92. Making the 100th Space Shuttle mission launched from Kennedy Space Center, Discovery will carry two pieces of hardware for the International Space Station, the Z1 truss, which is the cornerstone truss of the Station, and the third Pressurized Mating Adapter. Discovery also will be making its 28th flight into space, more than any of the other orbiters to date KSC00pp1289

Ground level view of Apollo 14 space vehicle leaving VAB for launch pad

Jim Grossmann KSC-2012-1710

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – At NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, space shuttle Atlantis foreground is towed in to Orbiter Processing Facility-1 after being towed from the Vehicle Assembly Building VAB. Workers will continue to prepare Atlantis for display at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. Meanwhile, space shuttle Discovery is on the move from OPF-1 to the Vehicle Assembly Building VAB. The aft view of Discovery reveals the tail cone that covers the three replica shuttle main engines. The work is part of the Space Shuttle Program’s transition and retirement processing of shuttle Discovery, which is being prepared for display at Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va. Discovery will remain in high bay 4 of the VAB until its scheduled transport atop a NASA Shuttle Carrier Aircraft modified 747 jet to Dulles International Airport in Virginia on April 17. Discovery will then be transported to the Smithsonian on April 19. For more information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/shuttle. Photo credit: NASA/Jim Grossmann

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.