CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Therrin Protze, chief operating officer for Delaware North Parks Services at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, speaks at a wreath-laying ceremony honoring Henry W. "Hank" Hartsfield at the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame. Hartsfield commanded space shuttle Discovery's maiden mission and was a veteran of three shuttle flights. He died July 17 after an illness. He was 80 years old. Hartsfield joined NASA in 1969 and was part of the astronaut support crew for Apollo 16 and the Skylab 2, 3 and 4 missions. He logged 483 hours in space during missions STS-4, on which he served as pilot, as well as STS-41D and STS-61A, both of which he commanded. Photo credit: NASA/Dimitri Gerondidakis KSC-2014-3268

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.