STS-135 video: Docking

America’s first space shuttle launched on this day 35 years ago as the reusable flying machine, Columbia, lifted off from Kennedy Space Center with John Young and Bob Crippen aboard.

Two space shuttle solid rocket boosters — reusable space hardware that launched on 81 missions — are being gifted to the California Science Center to become part of the museum’s launch pad display of Endeavour.

A heavy-duty crane towering over launch pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in recent weeks has removed several large sections of a disused structure once needed to install satellites and space station modules into space shuttle cargo bays.