The last Space Shuttle returned to Earth 15 years ago
LON missions had been a feature of the Space Shuttle program following the Columbia disaster. REG AD googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('labrador/thereg/article/desktop/b'); }); If a Space Shuttle was damaged, another could be launched at short notice to rescue the crew. NASA assigned Launch On Need flights separate STS-3xx designations, so the rescue mission for STS-116 was STS-317, STS-117 was STS-318, and so on.
- ▪LON missions had been a feature of the Space Shuttle program following the Columbia disaster.
- ▪REG AD googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('labrador/thereg/article/desktop/b'); }); If a Space Shuttle was damaged, another could be launched at short notice to rescue the crew.
- ▪NASA assigned Launch On Need flights separate STS-3xx designations, so the rescue mission for STS-116 was STS-317, STS-117 was STS-318, and so on.
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Record
| Original publisher | The Register |
| Canonical URL | https://www.theregister.com/science/2026/07/26/the-last-space-shuttle-returned-to-earth-15-years-ago/5277279 |
| Publication time | Sun, 26 Jul 2026 10:30:00 +0200 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-07-26T08:32:52.443Z |
| Last seen | 2026-07-26T08:32:52.443Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | gdrr8oZ2opvs |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
Rights status (four layers)
WeSearch handling by dimension
| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
(function() { let windowUrl = window.location.href; windowUrl = windowUrl.substring(windowUrl.indexOf('?') + 1); let messageElement = document.querySelector('.shareableMessage'); if (windowUrl && windowUrl.includes('code') && windowUrl.includes('expires')) { messageElement.style.display = 'block'; } })(); SCIENCE The last Space Shuttle returned to Earth 15 years ago So, how are those commercial replacements working out for you, NASA? Richard Speed Richard Speed MICROSOFT ECOSYSTEM REPORTER Published sun 26 Jul 2026 // 09:30 UTC This week marks 15 years since a Space Shuttle last returned from orbit and the end of NASA's Space Shuttle program.Space Shuttle Atlantis landed at the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) at Kennedy Space Center 15 years ago this week, marking the final mission for the…
Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at The Register.
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