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The Space Shuttle was a partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated by NASA (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration). Its official program name was Space Transportation System (STS), taken from a 1969 plan for a system of reusable spacecraft of which it was the only item funded for development. [ 1 ]
Non-launch costs account for a significant part of the program budget: for example, during fiscal years 2004 to 2006, NASA spent around $13 billion on the Space Shuttle program, [19] even though the fleet was grounded in the aftermath of the Columbia disaster and there were a total of three launches during this period of time. In fiscal year ...
A launch status check, also known as a "go/no go poll" and several other terms, occurs at the beginning of an American spaceflight mission in which flight controllers monitoring various systems are queried for operation and readiness status before a launch can proceed. For Space Shuttle missions, in the firing room at the Launch Control Center ...
NASA invited the public to share in it, virtually. NASA on flight day 7 released the video captured by cameras mounted on each of Atlantis ' s solid rocket boosters showing the launch of the shuttle. The shuttle astronauts went to sleep as planned but were awakened by the sound of a master alarm on board Atlantis at 22:07 GMT.
Shortly after launch NASA TV online and via cable was seriously disrupted by a thunderstorm over Goddard Space Flight Center from where NASA TV is uplinked to satellites for distribution. The entire mission was covered on NASA TV and was available online worldwide, on cable, and on satellite in the USA.
It was the final Space Shuttle crew with any "rookie" astronauts; all of the remaining missions would have all-veteran crews. [9] The launch was the last shuttle mission to take place at night. STS-131 was the third and last mission in the Space Shuttle program with three female astronauts. STS-40 and STS-96 were the first two. [10]
NASA originally scheduled the launch for October 20, 2007, but due to the International Space Station program requirement, launch was delayed to October 23, 2007. [ 19 ] In light of the small gouge to the underside of Endeavour that occurred on STS-118 , in August 2007, NASA managers announced that they expected to add a fifth spacewalk to the ...
NASA's retired space shuttle Endeavour was carefully hoisted late Monday and attached to a huge external fuel tank and its two solid rocket boosters at a Los Angeles museum where it will be ...