Photo history of Space Shuttle Program-PART 3

Columbia Disaster
On Feb. 1, 2003, tragedy struck the shuttle program again, as NASA Mission Control lost contact with space shuttle Columbia during the re-entry phase of its mission. The shuttle broke up over Texas, and all seven astronauts on board died in the crash. Debris from Columbia was found all over Texas and Louisiana. In this photo, recovered debris is arrayed in a grid on the floor of a hangar at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for NASA's attempt to reassemble the craft to learn what caused it to break up.

Silhouette
The shuttle Endeavour, as photographed over Earth by an International Space Station crew member. The orange layer is known as the troposphere, where all of the weather and clouds are generated and contained. It gives way to the whitish stratosphere and then into the mesosphere. The black segment is part of a window frame, not space.

Port of Call
Atlantis docks at the International Space Station in February 2010.

Soaring
Space shuttle Discovery approaches the International Space Station on Feb. 26, 2011, on its 39th and final flight.

Into Place
The shuttle Endeavour is lowered into place and attached to its external fuel tank and solid rocket boosters at Cape Canaveral, Fla., ahead of its 36th and final scheduled flight in March 2011.

Ready for Takeoff
If all goes according to schedule, the final shuttle, Atlantis, will launch into orbit on July 8, 2011.