Space shuttle Atlantis makes final landing
July 24, 2011 Category: Astronautics Leave a commentSpace shuttle Atlantis landed on the Shuttle Landing Facility’s Runway 15 at 5:57 a.m. EDT on July 21, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida (USA). Shuttle Atlantis, the last U.S. shuttle, returned from its last space mission and ended to an era of 30 years of space shuttle flights.
Commander Chris Ferguson on behalf of his crew said:
“Although we got to take the ride, we sure hope that everybody who has ever worked on, or touched, or looked at, or envied or admired a space shuttle was able to take just a little part of the journey with us.”
The STS-135 crew consisted of Commander Chris Ferguson, Pilot Doug Hurley, Mission Specialists Sandra Magnus and Rex Walheim.
Space shuttle Atlantis completing the mission. Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
Shuttle Atlantis was launched at Cape Canaveral (Florida) in July 8 and it docked with the ISS for the last time in July 11. On the 13-day mission, the STS-135 crew delivered to the International Space Station more than 9,400 pounds of spare parts, spare equipment and other supplies in the Raffaello multi-purpose logistics module, including 2,677 pounds of food.
Since STS-1 launched on April 12, 1981, 355 individuals from 16 countries flew 852 times aboard the shuttle. The five shuttles traveled more than 542 million miles and hosted more than 2,000 experiments in the fields of Earth, astronomy, biological and materials sciences. The shuttles docked with two space stations, the Russian Mir and the International Space Station. Shuttles deployed 180 payloads, including satellites, returned 52 from space and retrieved, repaired and redeployed seven spacecraft.
STS-135 was the 33rd and final flight for Atlantis, which spent 307 days in space, orbited Earth 4,848 times and traveled 125,935,769 miles.