CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- A truck delivers an F-104 Starfighter, formerly of the Italian Air Force, to Starfighters Inc. at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Jan. 19, 2012. The aircraft is one of five delivered to the company recently. They will be reassembled to fly research and development and other missions. Starfighters operates out of a hangar at the Shuttle Landing Facility at Kennedy under an agreement with Kennedy. Photo credit: NASA/Frankie Martin KSC-2012-1068

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.

• 8 Starfighters Svetkoff F 104 Image: PICRYL - Collections - GetArchive