STS-96 crew members and their families exit the bus at the Cape Canaveral Air Station Skid Strip to return to the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. From left are Mission Specialist Valery Ivanovich Tokarev (with the Russian Space Agency) and his wife, Irina; Sue Barry and Jennifer Barry, the wife and daughter, respectively, of Mission Specialist Daniel Barry (M.D., Ph.D.) (background); (foreground) Andrew Barry, son of Daniel; Pilot Rick D. Husband and his wife, Evelyn; and Ivan Tokarev, son of Valery. Other crew members also returning are Commander Kent V. Rominger and Mission Specialists Ellen Ochoa (Ph.D.), Tamara E. Jernigan (Ph.D.), and Julie Payette (with the Canadian Space Agency). After a successful 10-day mission to the International Space Station aboard Space Shuttle Discovery, the crew landed June 6 at 2:02:43 a.m. EDT, in the 11th night landing at KSC KSC-99pp0640

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KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. -- State Education Commissioner Charlie Crist (background, right) talks to students from Ronald McNair Magnet School, Cocoa, Fla., on the school bus that brought them to KSC for the launch of Space Shuttle Endeavour on mission STS-100. Crist was commemorating the 20th anniversary of Space Shuttle program with his visit to KSC for the launch. In uniform (center) is astronaut Sam Durrance, who also accompanied the students. At far left is teacher Nicole Waxberg, who chaperoned the students KSC-01pp0849

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STS-96 crew members and their families exit the bus at the Cape Canaveral Air Station Skid Strip to return to the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. From left are Mission Specialist Valery Ivanovich Tokarev (with the Russian Space Agency) and his wife, Irina; Sue Barry and Jennifer Barry, the wife and daughter, respectively, of Mission Specialist Daniel Barry (M.D., Ph.D.) (background); (foreground) Andrew Barry, son of Daniel; Pilot Rick D. Husband and his wife, Evelyn; and Ivan Tokarev, son of Valery. Other crew members also returning are Commander Kent V. Rominger and Mission Specialists Ellen Ochoa (Ph.D.), Tamara E. Jernigan (Ph.D.), and Julie Payette (with the Canadian Space Agency). After a successful 10-day mission to the International Space Station aboard Space Shuttle Discovery, the crew landed June 6 at 2:02:43 a.m. EDT, in the 11th night landing at KSC KSC-99pp0640

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Summary

STS-96 crew members and their families exit the bus at the Cape Canaveral Air Station Skid Strip to return to the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. From left are Mission Specialist Valery Ivanovich Tokarev (with the Russian Space Agency) and his wife, Irina; Sue Barry and Jennifer Barry, the wife and daughter, respectively, of Mission Specialist Daniel Barry (M.D., Ph.D.) (background); (foreground) Andrew Barry, son of Daniel; Pilot Rick D. Husband and his wife, Evelyn; and Ivan Tokarev, son of Valery. Other crew members also returning are Commander Kent V. Rominger and Mission Specialists Ellen Ochoa (Ph.D.), Tamara E. Jernigan (Ph.D.), and Julie Payette (with the Canadian Space Agency). After a successful 10-day mission to the International Space Station aboard Space Shuttle Discovery, the crew landed June 6 at 2:02:43 a.m. EDT, in the 11th night landing at KSC

Space Shuttle Program

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.