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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – After rollback of the rotating service structure, or RSS, on Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, space shuttle Endeavour is revealed. The shuttle sits on the mobile launcher platform, which straddles the flame trench below. First motion of the RSS was at 10:15 a.m. EDT. The rollback is in preparation for Endeavour's liftoff on the STS-127 mission with a crew of seven. Above the external tank is the "beanie cap," the oxygen vent hood that is designed to vent gaseous oxygen vapors away from the shuttle. This is the second launch attempt for Endeavour after the June 13 launch was scrubbed due to a hydrogen leak at the Ground Umbilical Carrier Plate during tanking June 12. The launch will be Endeavour's 23rd flight. The shuttle will carry the Japanese Experiment Module's Exposed Facility, or JEM-EF, and the Experiment Logistics Module-Exposed Section, or ELM-ES, on STS-127. The mission is the final of three flights dedicated to the assembly of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Kibo laboratory complex on the space station. Endeavour's launch is scheduled for June 17 at 5:40 a.m. EDT. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett KSC-2009-3726
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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – After rollback of the rotating service structure, or RSS, on Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, space shuttle Endeavour is revealed. The shuttle sits on the mobile launcher platform, which straddles the flame trench below. First motion of the RSS was at 10:15 a.m. EDT. The rollback is in preparation for Endeavour's liftoff on the STS-127 mission with a crew of seven. Above the external tank is the "beanie cap," the oxygen vent hood that is designed to vent gaseous oxygen vapors away from the shuttle. This is the second launch attempt for Endeavour after the June 13 launch was scrubbed due to a hydrogen leak at the Ground Umbilical Carrier Plate during tanking June 12. The launch will be Endeavour's 23rd flight. The shuttle will carry the Japanese Experiment Module's Exposed Facility, or JEM-EF, and the Experiment Logistics Module-Exposed Section, or ELM-ES, on STS-127. The mission is the final of three flights dedicated to the assembly of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Kibo laboratory complex on the space station. Endeavour's launch is scheduled for June 17 at 5:40 a.m. EDT. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett
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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