CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – The external fuel tank, ET- 132, designated for use with space shuttle Discovery on the STS-128 mission is moved away from the turn basin, heading for a high bay in the Vehicle Assembly Building, at left, for checkout. On the STS-128 mission, Discovery will carry science and storage racks to the International Space Station. Launch of Discovery is targeted for Aug. 6. Photo credit: NASA/Jack Pfaller KSC-2009-2999

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – In the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, segments of the Ares I-X first stage move past other stacks toward the fifth simulator segment stack at right. The two stacks will be mated, completing Super Stack 1. The super stack comprises the forward skirt, forward skirt extension, interstages 1 and 2 and the fifth segment simulator. Ares I-X is the test vehicle for the Ares I, which is part of the Constellation Program to return men to the moon and beyond. The Ares I-X flight test is targeted no earlier than Aug. 30 from Launch Pad 39B. Photo credit: NASA/Jack Pfaller KSC-2009-3896

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – In the Space Station Processing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, media representatives gather to view the International Space Station's Node 3, named Tranquility. The primary payload for the STS-130 mission, Tranquility is a pressurized module that will provide room for many of the space station's life support systems. Attached to one end of Tranquility is a cupola, a unique work area with six windows on its sides and one on top. The cupola resembles a circular bay window and will provide a vastly improved view of the station's exterior. The multi-directional view will allow the crew to monitor spacewalks and docking operations, as well as provide a spectacular view of Earth and other celestial objects. The module was built in Turin, Italy, by Thales Alenia Space for the European Space Agency. Space shuttle Endeavour's STS-130 mission is targeted for launch in early February 2010. For information on the STS-130 mission and crew, visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/sts130/index.html. Photo credit: NASA/Jack Pfaller KSC-2010-1095

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – NASA Public Affairs Officer Rachel Kraft welcomes members of the media to the Operations and Checkout Building high at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida to mark the T-6 months and counting to the launch of Orion on Exploration Flight Test-1, or EFT-1. To her right are NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden and Kennedy Director Bob Cabana. To her left are Cleon Lacefield, Lockheed Martin Orion Program manager, and Mark Geyer, NASA Orion Program manager. Behind them is the crew module stacked on the service module in the Final Assembly and System Testing cell. EFT-1 will provide engineers with data about the heat shield's ability to protect Orion and its future crews from the 4,000-degree heat of reentry and an ocean splashdown following the spacecraft’s 20,000-mph reentry from space. Data gathered during the flight will inform decisions about design improvements on the heat shield and other Orion systems, and authenticate existing computer models and new approaches to space systems design and development. This process is critical to reducing overall risks and costs of future Orion missions. Orion is the exploration spacecraft designed to carry astronauts to destinations not yet explored by humans, including an asteroid and Mars. It will have emergency abort capability, sustain the crew during space travel and provide safe re-entry from deep space return velocities. The first unpiloted test flight of the Orion is scheduled to launch later this year atop a Delta IV rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida to an altitude of 3,600 miles above the Earth's surface. The two-orbit, four-hour flight test will help engineers evaluate the systems critical to crew safety including the heat shield, parachute system and launch abort system. For more information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/orion. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett KSC-2014-2961

Antares Rocket Rollout. NASA public domain image colelction.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Viewed from across the Turn Basin in the Launch Complex 39 area at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the Pegasus Barge is bathed in lights. The barge is being prepared to be towed from the dock to a more secure mooring area. The barge is 266 ft long and 50 ft wide and has been used by the Space Shuttle Program to transport external fuel tanks over 900 miles of inland and open ocean waterways from the Michoud Assembly Facility in Louisiana to Kennedy. Photo credit: NASA/Jim Grossmann KSC-2011-2949

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – The external fuel tank, ET- 132, designated for use with space shuttle Discovery on the STS-128 mission is moved away from the turn basin, heading for a high bay in the Vehicle Assembly Building, at left, for checkout. On the STS-128 mission, Discovery will carry science and storage racks to the International Space Station. Launch of Discovery is targeted for Aug. 6. Photo credit: NASA/Jack Pfaller KSC-2009-2999

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – The external fuel tank, ET- 132, designated for use with space shuttle Discovery on the STS-128 mission is moved away from the turn basin, heading for a high bay in the Vehicle Assembly Building, at left, for checkout. On the STS-128 mission, Discovery will carry science and storage racks to the International Space Station. Launch of Discovery is targeted for Aug. 6. Photo credit: NASA/Jack Pfaller

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.