KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. -- At Launch Complex 39A, the P1 Truss Segment is lifted to the level of the Payload Changeout Room. The P1 truss is the primary payload for Mission STS-113 to the International Space Station. It is the first port truss segment which will be attached to the Station’s central truss segment, S0. Once delivered, the P1 truss will remain stowed until flight 12A.1. The mission will also deliver the Expedition 6 crew to the Station and return Expedition 5 to Earth. Space Shuttle Endeavour is scheduled to launch no earlier than Nov. 10 on the 11-day mission. KSC-02pd1505

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.