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Clouds of exhaust fill Launch Pad 39B as Space Shuttle Discovery lifts off at 2:19 p.m. EST Oct. 29 on mission STS-95. Making his second voyage into space after 36 years is Payload Specialist John H. Glenn Jr., senator from Ohio. Other crew members are Mission Commander Curtis L. Brown Jr., Pilot Steven W. Lindsey, Payload Specialist Chiaki Mukai, (M.D., Ph.D.), with the National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA), Mission Specialist Stephen K. Robinson, Mission Specialist Pedro Duque of Spain, representing the European Space Agency (ESA), and Mission Specialist Scott E. Parazynski. The STS-95 mission includes research payloads such as the Spartan solar-observing deployable spacecraft, the Hubble Space Telescope Orbital Systems Test Platform, the International Extreme Ultraviolet Hitchhiker, as well as the SPACEHAB single module with experiments on space flight and the aging process. Discovery is expected to return to KSC at 11:49 a.m. EST on Nov. 7 KSC-98pc1444
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. -- The wheels on Space shuttle Discovery kick up dust on Runway 33 as they touch down at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, concluding the 15-day mission STS-120 to the International Space Station. Main gear touchdown was 1:01:16 p.m. Wheel stop was at 1:02:07 p.m. Mission elapsed time was 15 days, 2 hours, 24 minutes and 2 seconds. The STS-120 crew continued the construction of the station with the installation of the Harmony Node 2 module and the relocation of the P6 truss. Photo credit: NASA/George Shelton KSC-07pd3161
STS-132 - LAUNCH - Public domain NASA photogrpaph
The Final Landing of STS-135 Atlantis
Saturn IB - Saturn IB S-IVB-206
STS-127 - Public domain NASA photogrpaph
STS-127 - EOM - Public domain NASA photogrpaph
STS-132 - LAUNCH - Public domain NASA photogrpaph
STS-134 - EOM - Public domain NASA photogrpaph
Related
View of the shuttle Discovery STS 51-D launch
View of the shuttle Discovery STS 51-D launch
View of the launch of STS 51-A shuttle Discovery
Aerial view of the launch of STS 51-A shuttle Discovery
Aerial view of the launch of STS 51-A shuttle Discovery
Space Shuttle Discovery: STS-51 Discovery launch
View of the shuttle Discovery on the launch pad just prior to STS 51-D launch
View of the shuttle Discovery on the launch pad just prior to STS 51-D launch
Shuttle Discovery on pad for STS 51-D mission
View of the shuttle Discovery STS 51-D launch
Summary
51D-9092 (12 April 1985) --- The Space Shuttle Discovery ascends the launch complex in Florida and heads through Atlantic skies toward its 51-D mission. The seven member crew lifted off at 8:59 a.m. (EST), April 12, 1985. This picture was made with a 35mm camera.
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.