Space Shuttle Columbia wind down after STS-118. It was to service the Hubble Space Telescope two more times between 2004 and 2005, but no more missions were planned for it again except for a mission designated STS-144 where it would retrieve the Hubble Space Telescope from orbit and bring it back to Earth. Following the "Columbia" accident, NASA flew the STS-125 mission using "Atlantis", combining the planned fourth and fifth servicing missions into one final mission to Hubble. Because of the retirement of the Space Shuttle fleet, the batteries and gyroscopes that keep the telescope pointed will eventually fail also because of the
Space Shuttle in accidents. It was used for orbital space missions by NASA, the U.S. Department of Defense, the European Space Agency, Japan, and Germany. The United States funded Shuttle development and operations except for the Spacelab modules used on D1 and D2sponsored by Germany. SL-J was partially funded by Japan. At launch, it consisted of the "stack", including the dark orange external tank (ET) (for the first two launches the tank was painted white); two white, slender solid rocket boosters (SRBs); and the Orbiter Vehicle, which contained the crew and payload. Some payloads were launched into higher orbits with either of