Rocket booster recovery, second Space Shuttle flight, November 1981. The rocket booster is recovered from the sea. The space shuttle's solid rocket boosters were reusable. After a shuttle launch, the casings were recovered from the Atlantic Ocean and towed back to NASA's Kennedy Space Center. The expended boosters were disassembled, refurbished and reloaded with solid propellant for reuse on another shuttle mission. The Space Shuttle program, (official name, Space Transportation System or STS), was the fourth human spaceflight program carried out by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which accomplished routine Earth-to-orbit transport for crew and cargo between 1981 and 2011.