STS-103 Mission Specialist Jean-François Clervoy of France (at microphone) greets the media at the Shuttle Landing Facility as Pilot Scott J. Kelly looks on. The crew arrived at KSC aboard T-38 jets to make final preparations for their launch. The other STS-103 crew members are Commander Curtis L. Brown Jr. and Mission Specialists Steven L. Smith, C. Michael Foale (Ph.D.), John M. Grunsfeld (Ph.D.), and Claude Nicollier of Switzerland. Nicollier and Clervoy are with the European Space Agency. The mission, to service the Hubble Space Telescope a third time, is scheduled for launch Dec. 11 at 12:13 a.m. EST from Launch Pad 39B KSC-99pp1389

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.