Space Shuttle program upgrade equipment for Hubble were ready and waiting in NASA warehouses. Many dissenters, including astronauts , asked NASA management to reconsider allowing the mission, but initially the director stood firm. On October 31, 2006, NASA announced approval of the launch of "Atlantis" for the fifth and final shuttle servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope, scheduled for August 28, 2008. However SM4/STS-125 eventually launched in May 2009. One impact of "Columbia" was that future crewed launch vehicles, namely the Ares I, had a special emphasis on crew safety compared to other considerations. NASA maintains extensive, warehoused catalogs of recovered pieces
Space Shuttle program OV-101) was rolled out on September 17, 1976, and later conducted a successful series of glide-approach and landing tests in 1977 that were the first real validation of the design. All Space Shuttle missions were launched from the Kennedy Space Center (KSC). The weather criteria used for launch included, but were not limited to: precipitation, temperatures, cloud cover, lightning forecast, wind, and humidity. The Shuttle was not launched under conditions where it could have been struck by lightning. The first fully functional orbiter was "Columbia" (designated OV-102), built in Palmdale, California. It was delivered to Kennedy Space Center (KSC) on