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.

Photo history of Space Shuttle Program-PART 2

Discovery 10

After a 32-month delay, the shuttle program resumed with the launch of Discovery in September 1988. Here, the shuttle is mounted on a mobile launchpad weeks before its liftoff.

Hubble
In addition to shuttling astronauts to and from the International Space Station, the shuttles contributed to NASA initiatives like the Hubble Space Telescope program. The telescope was launched into space in 1990 by the space shuttle Atlantis. Since then, Hubble has proved a vital research tool for astronomers by collecting data, producing stunning images and helping solve long-standing problems in the field.

Earth from Space
A cloud forming over Asia is photographed as the space shuttle Atlantis orbits Earth on its 10th flight, in 1991.

Aurora Australis
The southern lights are viewed from the space shuttle Endeavour in 1994.

Atlantis in the Evening
The evening launch of space shuttle Atlantis from the Kennedy Space Center precedes its mission to dock with the Russian space station Mir in 1997.

Photo history of Space Shuttle Program -PART 1

The Launch

Formally introduced by President Nixon on Jan. 5, 1972, the shuttle program set out, in the words of the President, to develop "an entirely new type of space transportation system ... that would center on a space vehicle that can shuttle repeatedly from Earth to orbit and back." On the day of the announcement, NASA administrator James Fletcher, left, demonstrated a model of the Space Shuttle concept to the President.

Wild Blue Yonder
Before NASA put a shuttle into space, it conducted five free-flight tests over the Dryden Flight Research Center in Edwards, Calif., in 1977. The approach and landing tests were performed by the shuttle prototype Enterprise, which in this photo flies free of a 747 carrier aircraft during one of the tests.

The Age of the Space Shuttle Begins
The shuttle Columbia leaves the launch pad on April 12, 1981, with astronauts John W. Young and Robert L. Crippen aboard. The trip, which lasted more than two days, was the first to take the shuttle into orbit.

Tragedy Strikes

Once the shuttle program began, it operated more or less successfully for five years — until Jan. 28, 1986, when shortly after takeoff, the shuttle Challenger exploded, killing all those aboard.

The Challenger Crew
This group photograph of the fallen astronauts was published broadly after the Challenger disaster as the faces of the crew became familiar to all Americans. They are, back row, from left: Ellison S. Onizuka, Sharon Christa McAuliffe, Gregory B. Jarvis and Judith A. Resnik; front row, from left: Michael J. Smith, Francis R. Scobee and Ronald E. McNair.