CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – In the Space Station Processing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, a worker demonstrates an attachment point on ammonia tanks while STS-128 Mission Specialist John "Danny" Olivas (far right) looks on. The tanks are part of the payload for their upcoming STS-128 mission. Members of the STS-128 crew are at Kennedy for a crew equipment interface test, or CEIT, which provides hands-on training and observation of shuttle and flight hardware. The STS-128 flight will carry science and storage racks to the International Space Station on space shuttle Discovery. The STS-128 mission is targeted to launch on Aug. 6. Photo credit: NASA/Jim Grossmann KSC-2009-3544

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.