KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. -- Being lowered into the payload bay of Discovery for a closer look at the payload are STS-92 Mission Specialists Leroy Chiao (second from left) and Bill McArthur (far right), accompanied by Boeing workers. In the foreground is the Pressurized Mating Adapter-3. They and other crew members Commander Brian Duffy, Pilot Pam Melroy and Mission Specialists Koichi Wakata, Jeff Wisoff and Michael Lopez-Alegria are taking part in Crew Equipment Interface Test activities. STS-92 is scheduled to launch Oct. 5 on Shuttle Discovery from Launch Pad 39A on the fifth flight to the International Space Station. Discovery will carry the Integrated Truss Structure (ITS) Z1, the PMA-3, Ku-band Communications System, and Control Moment Gyros (CMGs) KSC00pp0914
Summary
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. -- Being lowered into the payload bay of Discovery for a closer look at the payload are STS-92 Mission Specialists Leroy Chiao (second from left) and Bill McArthur (far right), accompanied by Boeing workers. In the foreground is the Pressurized Mating Adapter-3. They and other crew members Commander Brian Duffy, Pilot Pam Melroy and Mission Specialists Koichi Wakata, Jeff Wisoff and Michael Lopez-Alegria are taking part in Crew Equipment Interface Test activities. STS-92 is scheduled to launch Oct. 5 on Shuttle Discovery from Launch Pad 39A on the fifth flight to the International Space Station. Discovery will carry the Integrated Truss Structure (ITS) Z1, the PMA-3, Ku-band Communications System, and Control Moment Gyros (CMGs)
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.