The Space Shuttle program was the fourth human spaceflight program carried out by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which accomplished routine transportation for Earth-to-orbit crew and cargo from 1981 to 2011. Its official name, Space Transportation System (STS), was taken from a 1969 plan for a system of reusable spacecraft of which it was the only item funded for development. It flew 135 missions and carried 355 astronauts from 16 countries, many on multiple trips.
The Constellation program was a crewed spaceflight program developed by NASA, the space agency of the United States, from 2005 to 2009. The major goals of the program were "completion of the International Space Station" and a "return to the Moon no later than 2020" with a crewed flight to the planet Mars as the ultimate goal. The program's logo reflected the three stages of the program: the Earth (ISS), the Moon, and finally Mars—while the Mars goal also found expression in the name given to the program's booster rockets: Ares. The technological aims of the program included the regaining of significant astronaut experience beyond low Earth orbit and the development of technologies necessary to enable sustained human presence on other planetary bodies.
Brewster Hopkinson Shaw Jr. is a retired NASA astronaut, U.S. Air Force colonel, and former executive at Boeing. Shaw was inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame on May 6, 2006.
The Lockheed Martin X-33 was a proposed uncrewed, sub-scale technology demonstrator suborbital spaceplane that was developed for a period in the 1990s. The X-33 was a technology demonstrator for the VentureStar orbital spaceplane, which was planned to be a next-generation, commercially operated reusable launch vehicle. The X-33 would flight-test a range of technologies that NASA believed it needed for single-stage-to-orbit reusable launch vehicles, such as metallic thermal protection systems, composite cryogenic fuel tanks for liquid hydrogen, the aerospike engine, autonomous (uncrewed) flight control, rapid flight turn-around times through streamlined operations, and its lifting body aerodynamics.
Michael James "Mike" McCulley, , is a retired American naval officer and aviator, test pilot, metallurgical engineer, and former NASA astronaut, and was the first submariner in space. He served as pilot on STS-34 Atlantis mission that among other things deployed the Galileo spacecraft on its journey toward Jupiter.
Bruce Edward Melnick is a retired American astronaut and United States Coast Guard officer. Following retirement from NASA and the Coast Guard, he entered the aerospace industry. He served as a vice president with the Boeing Co.'s Integrated Defense Systems group, in charge of Boeing's Florida operations at the John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC). Melnick retired in 2008 and currently resides on Merritt Island, Florida.
Boeing Defense, Space & Security (BDS) is a division of The Boeing Company based in Arlington, Virginia. It is responsible for defense and aerospace products and services. It was formerly known as Boeing Integrated Defense Systems (IDS).
Lockheed Martin Space is one of the four major business divisions of Lockheed Martin. It has its headquarters in Littleton, Colorado, with additional sites in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania; Sunnyvale, California; Santa Cruz, California; Huntsville, Alabama; and elsewhere in the United States and United Kingdom. The division currently employs about 20,000 people, and its most notable products are commercial and military satellites, space probes, missile defense systems, NASA's Orion spacecraft, and the Space Shuttle external tank.
The Exploration Systems Architecture Study (ESAS) is the official title of a large-scale, system level study released by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in November 2005 of his goal of returning astronauts to the Moon and eventually Mars—known as the Vision for Space Exploration. The Constellation Program was cancelled in 2010 by the Obama Administration and replaced with the Space Launch System, later renamed as the Artemis Program in 2017 under the Trump Administration.
Space Launch Complex 6 at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California is a launch pad and support area. The site was originally developed starting in 1966, but no launches occurred until 1995, as it was repurposed sequentially for three programs that were subsequently cancelled. Initially to be used for Titan IIIM rockets and the Manned Orbiting Laboratory, these were cancelled before construction of SLC-6 was complete. The complex was later rebuilt to serve as the west coast launch site for the Space Shuttle, but went unused due to budget, safety and political considerations. The pad was subsequently used for four Athena rocket launches before being modified to support the Delta IV launch vehicle family, which used the pad for ten launches from 2006 until 2022. The last Delta IV launched in September 2022, and SpaceX leased SLC-6 in 2023 to convert it to launch Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy starting in 2025.
United Launch Alliance, LLC, commonly referred to as ULA, is an American aerospace manufacturer, defense contractor and launch service provider that manufactures and operates a number of rocket vehicles that launch spacecraft into orbits around Earth and other bodies in the Solar System.
The Ares V was the planned cargo launch component of the cancelled NASA Constellation program, which was to have replaced the Space Shuttle after its retirement in 2011. Ares V was also planned to carry supplies for a human presence on Mars. Ares V and the smaller Ares I were named after Ares, the Greek god of war.
Ares I was the crew launch vehicle that was being developed by NASA as part of the Constellation program. The name "Ares" refers to the Greek deity Ares, who is identified with the Roman god Mars. Ares I was originally known as the "Crew Launch Vehicle" (CLV).
The Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) was a component of the U.S. NASA Vision for Space Exploration plan. A competition was held to design a spacecraft that could carry humans to the destinations envisioned by the plan. The winning design was the Orion spacecraft.
DIRECT was a late-2000s proposed alternative super heavy lift launch vehicle architecture supporting NASA's Vision for Space Exploration that would replace the space agency's planned Ares I and Ares V rockets with a family of Shuttle-Derived Launch Vehicles named "Jupiter". It was intended to be the alternative to the Ares I and Ares V rockets which were under development for the Constellation program, intended to develop the Orion spacecraft for use in Earth orbit, the Moon, and Mars.
Development of the Commercial Crew Program began in the second round of the Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program, which was rescoped from a technology development program for human spaceflight to a competitive development program that would produce the spacecraft to be used in the Commercial Crew Program to provide crew transportation services to and from the International Space Station (ISS). To implement the program NASA awarded a series of competitive fixed-price contracts to private vendors starting in 2011. Operational contracts to fly astronauts were awarded in September 2014 to SpaceX and Boeing, and NASA expected each company to complete development and achieve crew rating in 2017. Each company performed an uncrewed orbital test flight in 2019. SpaceX operational flights started in November 2020.
The retirement of NASA's Space Shuttle fleet took place from March to July 2011. Discovery was the first of the three active Space Shuttles to be retired, completing its final mission on March 9, 2011; Endeavour did so on June 1. The final shuttle mission was completed with the landing of Atlantis on July 21, 2011, closing the 30-year Space Shuttle program.
Orion is a partially reusable crewed spacecraft used in NASA's Artemis program. The spacecraft consists of a Crew Module (CM) space capsule designed by Lockheed Martin and the European Service Module (ESM) manufactured by Airbus Defence and Space. Capable of supporting a crew of four beyond low Earth orbit, Orion can last up to 21 days undocked and up to six months docked. It is equipped with solar panels, an automated docking system, and glass cockpit interfaces modeled after those used in the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. A single AJ10 engine provides the spacecraft's primary propulsion, while eight R-4D-11 engines, and six pods of custom reaction control system engines developed by Airbus, provide the spacecraft's secondary propulsion. Orion is intended to launch atop a Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, with a tower launch escape system.
United States Air Force Plant 42 is a classified aircraft manufacturing plant owned by the United States Air Force in the Antelope Valley, about 60 miles from downtown Los Angeles. It is also used by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
Deep Space Transport LLC is a joint venture that is set to provide launch services for the Space Launch System rocket. The joint venture consists of Boeing, the prime contractor for the Space Launch System core stage and the Exploration Upper Stage that will be used on Space Launch System missions, and Northrop Grumman, the prime contractor for the Space Launch System's solid rocket boosters.
