KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. - After landing at the KSC Shuttle Landing Facility, NASA's Super Guppy cargo airplane opens to remove its cargo, the Long Spacer (LS), the second and final piece of the Starboard 6 (S6) Integrated Truss Segment. The LS will be transported to the Space Station Processing Facility for inspections and verification tests. Eventually the LS will be integrated with the S6 Integrated Equipment Assembly already at KSC and will fly as one segment to the International Space Station on Space Shuttle mission STS-119 in early 2004. Together the segment pieces weigh 26,000 pounds and measure 45 feet long. . KSC-02pd1942

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.