Shuttles and Space Craft Posters, Prints and Charts
for social studies and science classrooms, home schoolers, theme decor for office and studio.

NASA's Space Shuttle, officially the Space Transportation System (STS), is a manned launch vehicle and the first orbital spacecraft desiged for partial reusability. The shuttle carries payloads, provides crew rotation, and performs servicing missions for satellites and the International Space Station (ISS). The shuttles were named Pathfinder (a flight simulator), Enterprise, Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Endeavor, and Atlantis.

Each STS was designed for a projected lifespan of 100 launches or 10 years' operational life. After the Challenger tragedy in 1983, the program was halted for an investigation into the cause. In November of 1989 the shuttle Discovery resumed the program. A second accident in February 2003 occurred with the break up of the Columbia on reentry.

The last space shuttle mission ended July 21, 2011 with the landing of Atlantis. A replacement heavy-lift vehicle (HLV) is being developed for the Space Launch System (SLS) of launching equipement into low Earth orbit (LEO).