The early morning light reveals STS-95 Space Shuttle Discovery, on the Mobile Launch Platform, on its 6-hour, 4.2-mile trek to Launch Complex Pad 39B from the Vehicle Assembly Building. To the left is the Fixed Service Structure that provides access to the orbiter and the Rotating Service Structure. In the background is th eelevated water tank that helps reduce sound levels during launch. At the launch pad, the orbiter, external tank and solid rocket boosters will undergo final preparations for the launch, scheduled to lift off Oct. 29. The mission includes research payloads such as the Spartan solar-observing deployable spacecraft, the Hubble Space Telescope Orbital Systems Test Platform, the International Extreme Ultraviolet Hitchhiker, as well as the SPACEHAB single module with experiments on space flight and the aging process KSC-98pc1105

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STS-127 - EOM - Public domain NASA photogrpaph

STS-129 - Public domain NASA photogrpaph

FFT CCT Mockup in Building 9. NASA public domain image colelction.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – The high-fidelity space shuttle model is aboard the barge that will transport it from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to Johnson Space Center's visitor center in Houston. The model was built in Apopka, Fla., by Guard-Lee and installed at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in 1993.The model has been parked at the turn basin the past five months to allow the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex to begin building a new facility to display space shuttle Atlantis in 2013. For more information about Johnson’s visitor center, called Space Center Houston, visit http://www.spacecenter.org. Photo credit: NASA/Charisse Nahser KSC-2012-2998

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – NASA's Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, or SCA, is parked on the apron of the Shuttle Landing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida with space shuttle Endeavour secured on its back. The SCA, a modified 747 jetliner, will fly Endeavour to Los Angeles where it will be placed on public display at the California Science Center. This is the final ferry flight scheduled in the Space Shuttle Program era. For more information on the shuttles' transition and retirement, visit http://www.nasa.gov/transition. Photo credit: NASA/Frankie Martin KSC-2012-5236

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Space Shuttle [Discovery flying over Washington. D.C., on final journey to its permanent museum home]

The early morning light reveals STS-95 Space Shuttle Discovery, on the Mobile Launch Platform, on its 6-hour, 4.2-mile trek to Launch Complex Pad 39B from the Vehicle Assembly Building. To the left is the Fixed Service Structure that provides access to the orbiter and the Rotating Service Structure. In the background is th eelevated water tank that helps reduce sound levels during launch. At the launch pad, the orbiter, external tank and solid rocket boosters will undergo final preparations for the launch, scheduled to lift off Oct. 29. The mission includes research payloads such as the Spartan solar-observing deployable spacecraft, the Hubble Space Telescope Orbital Systems Test Platform, the International Extreme Ultraviolet Hitchhiker, as well as the SPACEHAB single module with experiments on space flight and the aging process KSC-98pc1105

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Summary

The early morning light reveals STS-95 Space Shuttle Discovery, on the Mobile Launch Platform, on its 6-hour, 4.2-mile trek to Launch Complex Pad 39B from the Vehicle Assembly Building. To the left is the Fixed Service Structure that provides access to the orbiter and the Rotating Service Structure. In the background is th eelevated water tank that helps reduce sound levels during launch. At the launch pad, the orbiter, external tank and solid rocket boosters will undergo final preparations for the launch, scheduled to lift off Oct. 29. The mission includes research payloads such as the Spartan solar-observing deployable spacecraft, the Hubble Space Telescope Orbital Systems Test Platform, the International Extreme Ultraviolet Hitchhiker, as well as the SPACEHAB single module with experiments on space flight and the aging process

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.