CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The payload canister containing the equipment and hardware for space shuttle Atlantis’ STS-125 mission to the Hubble Space Telescope is moved from the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, to the canister rotation facility. The canister will be transferred to Launch Pad 39A and the payload will be loaded into Atlantis’ payload bay. Launch of Atlantis is targeted for Oct 10. Photo credit: NASA/Jack Pfaller KSC-08pd2743
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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The payload canister containing the equipment and hardware for space shuttle Atlantis’ STS-125 mission to the Hubble Space Telescope is moved from the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, to the canister rotation facility. The canister will be transferred to Launch Pad 39A and the payload will be loaded into Atlantis’ payload bay. Launch of Atlantis is targeted for Oct 10. Photo credit: NASA/Jack Pfaller
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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