Similar
STS-124 Space Shuttle Discovery Landing
Summary
NASA Astronaut Garrett Reisman, right, jokes with NASA Associate Administrator Chris Scolese, 2nd from right, NASA Associate Administrator for Space Operations Bill Gerstenmaier, 3rd from right and NASA Deputy Shuttle Program Manager LeRoy Cain as NASA Astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria looks on shortly after landing onboard the space shuttle Discovery. Discovery touched down at 11:15 a.m., Saturday, June 14, 2008, at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Onboard Discovery with Reisman was the crew of the STS-124 mission, NASA astronauts Mark Kelly, commander; Ken Ham, pilot; Mike Fossum, Ron Garan, Karen Nyberg and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Akihiko Hoshide, all mission specialists. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)
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.
Tags
Date
Location
Source
Copyright info
