KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. -- The Service Structure driver (inside the cab near bottom of photo) begins rolling back the Rotating Service Structure on Launch Pad 39A to reveal the Space Shuttle Endeavour with its external tank and two solid rocket boosters on top of the Mobile Launcher Platform. Endeavour is ready for launch of mission STS-88 targeted for 3:56 a.m. on Dec. 3. The first U.S. launch for the International Space Station, STS-88 is expected to last 11 days, 19 hours and 49 minutes, and land at 10:17 p.m. EST on Dec. 14. Endeavour carries the Unity connecting module which the crew will be mating with the Russian-built Zarya control module already in orbit. In addition to Unity, two small replacement electronics boxes are on board for possible repairs to Zarya batteries KSC-98pc1747

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.