CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- At NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, space shuttle Endeavour approaches the Vehicle Assembly Building, or VAB, on its move from Orbiter Processing Facility-2 where it was processed for its final and upcoming STS-134 mission. In the VAB, Endeavour will be lifted into a high bay where it will be joined to its external fuel tank and solid rocket boosters. Endeavour and its STS-134 crew will deliver the Express Logistics Carrier-3, Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, spare parts, a high-pressure gas tank, additional spare parts for Dextre and micrometeoroid debris shields to the International Space Station. Launch is targeted for April 19 at 7:48 p.m. EDT. For more information visit, http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/sts134/index.html. Photo credit: NASA/Jack Pfaller KSC-2011-1793

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.