KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. - In the Space Station Processing Facility, workers monitor the Lightweight Multi-Purpose Experiment Support Structure Carrier (LMC) as it is lifted by a crane. Slated to fly on space shuttle mission STS-121, the LMC is ready to be delivered to Launch Pad 39B for installation into orbiter Discovery. It is a cross-bay carrier for hardware required to perform development test objective 848. Test objective 848 is a demonstration of the tools and techniques developed to repair damaged orbiter thermal protection system tiles during a spacewalk, or extravehicular activity. The target launch window for STS-121 is July 1 to July 19, 2006. Photo credit: NASA/Cory Husten KSC-06pd0794
Summary
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. - In the Space Station Processing Facility, workers monitor the Lightweight Multi-Purpose Experiment Support Structure Carrier (LMC) as it is lifted by a crane. Slated to fly on space shuttle mission STS-121, the LMC is ready to be delivered to Launch Pad 39B for installation into orbiter Discovery. It is a cross-bay carrier for hardware required to perform development test objective 848. Test objective 848 is a demonstration of the tools and techniques developed to repair damaged orbiter thermal protection system tiles during a spacewalk, or extravehicular activity. The target launch window for STS-121 is July 1 to July 19, 2006. Photo credit: NASA/Cory Husten
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.
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