KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. -- During a special event at Walt Disney World in Orlando honoring the crew of space shuttle mission STS-118, Mission Specialist Barbara R. Morgan (left) helps dedicate a plaque outside the Mission: Space attraction. At right are Vice President of Epcot Jim MacPhee and NASA Assistant Administrator for Education Joyce Winterton. Along with the dedication, the crew met with students and media and paraded down Main Street to the delight of the crowds. The other crew members attending were Commander Scott Kelly, Pilot Charlie Hobaugh and Mission Specialists Tracy Caldwell, Rick Mastracchio, Dave Williams and Alvin Drew. Mission STS-118 was the 119th shuttle program flight and the 22nd flight to the International Space Station. Space shuttle Endeavour launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center on Aug. 8 and landed Aug. 21. The mission delivered the S5 truss, continuing the assembly of the space station. Photo credit: NASA/George Shelton KSC-07pd2410
Summary
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. -- During a special event at Walt Disney World in Orlando honoring the crew of space shuttle mission STS-118, Mission Specialist Barbara R. Morgan (left) helps dedicate a plaque outside the Mission: Space attraction. At right are Vice President of Epcot Jim MacPhee and NASA Assistant Administrator for Education Joyce Winterton. Along with the dedication, the crew met with students and media and paraded down Main Street to the delight of the crowds. The other crew members attending were Commander Scott Kelly, Pilot Charlie Hobaugh and Mission Specialists Tracy Caldwell, Rick Mastracchio, Dave Williams and Alvin Drew. Mission STS-118 was the 119th shuttle program flight and the 22nd flight to the International Space Station. Space shuttle Endeavour launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center on Aug. 8 and landed Aug. 21. The mission delivered the S5 truss, continuing the assembly of the space station. Photo credit: NASA/George Shelton
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.
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