Timelapse video: The final space shuttle assembled for flight

The final flight of Space Shuttle Discovery seen from the ET-Cam mounted near the top of its fuel tank. Mission STS-133 lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center on February 24, 2011. (Membership required)

Thirty years after the space shuttle Challenger disintegrated in the clear, cold sky high above Cape Canaveral, the commander’s widow no longer feels anger at NASA and the management missteps and schedule pressure that kept the orbiters flying despite a fatal flaw in their solid-fuel boosters.

Workers removed the protective wrap that has cocooned space shuttle Atlantis while its $100 million new home was built around it at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.