Space Shuttle Projects, Marshall Space Flight Center
Summary
These six NASA astronauts launched into space aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis on March 22, 1996 for the STS-76 mission. Pictured on the front row, left to right, are astronauts Ronald M. Sega, mission specialist; Kevin P. Chilton, mission commander; and Richard A. Searfoss, pilot. On the back row, left to right, are mission specialists Michael R. (Rich) Clifford, Shannon W. Lucid, and Linda M. Godwin. The third U.S. Shuttle-Mir docking, STS-76 began a new period of international cooperation in space exploration with the first Shuttle transport of a United States astronaut (Lucid) to Russia’s Mir Space Station for extended joint space research. Clifford and Godwin, pictured here in training versions of the Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU), performed the first Extravehicular Activity (EVA) during Mir-Shuttle docked operations.
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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