CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – At NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, space shuttle Endeavour arrives in Orbiter Processing Facility #2. Endeavour landed at 10:48 a.m. EDT, completing a journey of 6.5-million miles on the STS-127 mission. Umbilicals are still attached to purge the vehicle of any possible residual explosive or toxic fumes. Towing normally begins within four hours after landing and is completed within six hours unless removal of time-sensitive experiments is required on the runway. In the OPF, turnaround processing procedures on Endeavour will include various post-flight deservicing and maintenance functions, which are carried out in parallel with payload removal and the installation of equipment needed for the next mission. The STS-127 mission was the 29th flight to the station, the 23rd flight of Endeavour and the 71st landing at Kennedy. Photo credit: NASA/Jim Grossmann KSC-2009-4385
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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – At NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, space shuttle Endeavour arrives in Orbiter Processing Facility #2. Endeavour landed at 10:48 a.m. EDT, completing a journey of 6.5-million miles on the STS-127 mission. Umbilicals are still attached to purge the vehicle of any possible residual explosive or toxic fumes. Towing normally begins within four hours after landing and is completed within six hours unless removal of time-sensitive experiments is required on the runway. In the OPF, turnaround processing procedures on Endeavour will include various post-flight deservicing and maintenance functions, which are carried out in parallel with payload removal and the installation of equipment needed for the next mission. The STS-127 mission was the 29th flight to the station, the 23rd flight of Endeavour and the 71st landing at Kennedy. Photo credit: NASA/Jim Grossmann
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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