page_title: Space Shuttle retirement
section_title: Constellation Program
hierarchical_section_title: Space Shuttle retirement / Former planned Space Shuttle successors / Constellation Program
caption_attribution_description: The CEV spacecraft docks to the International Space Station
context_page_description: 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.
  The Shuttle was presented to the public in 1972 as a "space truck" which would, among other things, be used to build a United States space station in low Earth orbit in the early 1990s and then be replaced by a new vehicle. When the concept of the U.S. space station evolved into that of the International Space Station, which suffered from long delays and design changes before it could be completed, the service life of the Space Shuttle was extended several times until 2011 when it was finally retired.
  In 2010 the Shuttle was formally scheduled for retirement with Atlantis being taken out of service first after STS-132 in May of that year, but the program was once again extended when the two final planned missions were delayed until 2011.
context_section_description: Following the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, in early 2003 President George W. Bush, announced his Vision for Space Exploration which called for the completion of the American portion of the International Space Station by 2010 (due to delays this would not happen until 2011), the retirement of the Space Shuttle fleet following its completion, to return to the moon by 2020 and one day to Mars. A new vehicle would need to be developed, it eventually was named the Orion spacecraft, a six-person variant would have serviced the ISS and a four-person variant would have traveled to the Moon. The Ares I would have launched Orion, and the Ares V heavy-lift vehicle (HLV) would have launched all other hardware. The Altair lunar lander would have landed crew and cargo onto the Moon. The Constellation program experienced many cost overruns and schedule delays, and was openly criticized by the subsequent U.S. President, Barack Obama.
  In February 2010, the Obama administration proposed eliminating public funds for the Constellation program and shifting greater responsibility of servicing the ISS to private companies. During a speech at the Kennedy Space Center on April 15, 2010, President Obama proposed the design selection of the new HLV that would replace the Ares-V but would not occur until 2015. The U.S. Congress drafted the NASA Authorization Act of 2010 and President Obama signed it into law on October 11 of that year. The authorization act officially cancelled the Constellation program.
  The combination of Ares I and Orion was predicted to cost about 50 billion dollars. One of the issues with Ares I was the criticism of the second stage, which the post-cancellation Liberty proposal attempted to address by using a second stage from an Ariane 5. The Liberty proposal applied for but was not chosen for commercial crew. The other ongoing complaint was that it made more sense to make a man-rated version of the Atlas or Delta. The first crewed flight for Ares I was scheduled for March 2015, and one of its priorities was crew safety. One reason for the emphasis on safety was that it was envisioned in the aftermath of the Columbia disaster.
caption: Artist's rendition of the docking of Orion to the ISS.
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