CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – At NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, a technician monitors space shuttle Atlantis as it is towed from the Vehicle Assembly Building toward Orbiter Processing Facility-1. A view of Atlantis’ nose cone area shows that the forward reaction control system has been removed. The work is part of the Space Shuttle Program’s transition and retirement processing of the three space shuttles. Atlantis is being prepared for display at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex and is scheduled to rollover to the complex in November. Photo credit: NASA/Tim Jacobs KSC-2012-1725

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.