KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. -- STS-111 Pilot Paul Lockhart talks to members of the Closeout Crew in the White Room before entering Space Shuttle Endeavour for launch. The White Room, at the end of the Orbiter Access Arm, provides entry into the cockpit area of the orbiter. Other crew members are Commander Kenneth Cockrell, Mission Specialists Franklin Chang-Diaz and Philippe Perrin (CNES), and Expedition Five Commander Valeri Korzun, astronaut Peggy Whitson, and cosmonaut Sergei Treschev. This mission, a utilization flight, marks the 14th Shuttle flight to the International Space Station and the third Shuttle mission this year. Mission STS-111 is the 18th flight of Endeavour and the 110th flight overall in NASA's Space Shuttle program KSC-02pp0924
Summary
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. -- STS-111 Pilot Paul Lockhart talks to members of the Closeout Crew in the White Room before entering Space Shuttle Endeavour for launch. The White Room, at the end of the Orbiter Access Arm, provides entry into the cockpit area of the orbiter. Other crew members are Commander Kenneth Cockrell, Mission Specialists Franklin Chang-Diaz and Philippe Perrin (CNES), and Expedition Five Commander Valeri Korzun, astronaut Peggy Whitson, and cosmonaut Sergei Treschev. This mission, a utilization flight, marks the 14th Shuttle flight to the International Space Station and the third Shuttle mission this year. Mission STS-111 is the 18th flight of Endeavour and the 110th flight overall in NASA's Space Shuttle program
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.