Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Booster design or replacing them altogether with liquid "flyback" boosters using either Atlas V or Delta IV EELV technologies. The 5-segment SRB, which would have required little change to the current shuttle infrastructure, would have allowed the space shuttle to carry an additional of payload in an International Space Station-inclination orbit, eliminate the dangerous "Return-to-Launch Site" (RTLS) and "Trans-Oceanic Abort" (TAL) modes, and, by using a so-called "dog-leg maneuver", fly south-to-north polar orbiting flights from Kennedy Space Center. After the destruction of "Columbia", NASA shelved the five-segment SRB for the Shuttle Program, and the three surviving Orbiters, "Discovery", "Atlantis", and "Endeavour"
Space Shuttle Atlantis U.S. manned space flight; first U.S. Shuttle-Russian Space Station Mir docking and joint on-orbit operations; and first on-orbit changeout of shuttle crew. When linked, "Atlantis" and "Mir" together formed the largest spacecraft in orbit at the time. Shuttle "Atlantis" also delivered several vital components for the construction of the International Space Station (ISS). During the February 2001 mission STS-98 to the ISS, "Atlantis" delivered the Destiny Module, the primary operating facility for U.S. research payloads aboard the ISS. The five hour 25 minute third spacewalk performed by astronauts Robert Curbeam and Thomas Jones during STS-98 marked NASA's 100th extra vehicular