File:KSC-04-S-00376

English: From touch down after a mission -- through processing for the next flight -- to liftoff again -- NASA's Space Shuttle fleet calls the Kennedy Space Center home. It takes a vast array of facilities and workers to prepare, launch, and land the Shuttles -- a process KSC has handled for more than twenty years. The first Shuttle flight blasted off from Pad 39-A at KSC on April 12, 1981. After this successful mission to test the orbiter's major systems, it returned to Earth as scheduled -- landing at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. -- with a KSC landing convoy standing by. The California landing required a return ride to KSC aboard one of the two massive 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft. Those piggy-back flights became less frequent after February 11, 1984, when the first Shuttle touched down at KSC's Shuttle Landing Facility -- one of the world's longest runways. Since then, primarily weather has kept returning Shuttles from making the roundtrip directly to KSC, since landing here saves