KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. -- Space Shuttle Columbia, atop its Mobile Launcher Platform, sits on Launch Pad 39A after an early morning rollout from the Vehicle Assembly Building. On the left is the Rotating Service Structure, which will swing counterclockwise to enclose the Shuttle and enable final preparations, including transfer of the payload. Atop the Fixed Service Structure (center) is the lightning mast, 347 feet above the pad. The 80-foot fiberglass mast provides protection from lightning strikes. Columbia is scheduled to be launched Feb. 28 on mission STS-109, a Hubble Servicing Mission. The goal of the mission is to replace Solar Array 2 with Solar Array 3, replace the Power Control Unit, remove the Faint Object Camera and install the ACS, install the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) Cooling System, and install New Outer Blanket Layer insulation. The launch will be the first for Columbia after returning from California where it underwent extensive maintenance, inspections and enhancements. More than 100 upgrades make Columbia safer and more reliable than ever before KSC-02pd0049
Summary
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. -- Space Shuttle Columbia, atop its Mobile Launcher Platform, sits on Launch Pad 39A after an early morning rollout from the Vehicle Assembly Building. On the left is the Rotating Service Structure, which will swing counterclockwise to enclose the Shuttle and enable final preparations, including transfer of the payload. Atop the Fixed Service Structure (center) is the lightning mast, 347 feet above the pad. The 80-foot fiberglass mast provides protection from lightning strikes. Columbia is scheduled to be launched Feb. 28 on mission STS-109, a Hubble Servicing Mission. The goal of the mission is to replace Solar Array 2 with Solar Array 3, replace the Power Control Unit, remove the Faint Object Camera and install the ACS, install the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) Cooling System, and install New Outer Blanket Layer insulation. The launch will be the first for Columbia after returning from California where it underwent extensive maintenance, inspections and enhancements. More than 100 upgrades make Columbia safer and more reliable than ever before
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.