"Mission complete, Houston"

Space Shuttle "Atlantis" Tribute

"It's been an unbelievable and amazing journey."

Shuttle Atlantis touches down at NASA's Kennedy Space Center Shuttle Landing Facility in Cape Canaveral, Fla., completing its 13-day mission to the International Space Station and the final flight of the Space Shuttle Program, early Thursday morning, July 21, 2011. Atlantis, the fourth orbiter built, launched on its first mission on Oct. 3, 1985.

Under cover of darkness, the shuttle glided seamlessly to a predawn landing at Kennedy Space Center at 5:57 am (0957 GMT).After 200 orbits around Earth and a journey of 5,284,862 miles, the landing at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida brought to a close 30 years of space shuttle flights.

It was still dark when Atlantis touched down for a final time at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida early Thursday morning, capping 30 years of shuttle flights.

"Mission complete, Houston,"

shuttle commander Chris Ferguson said as the black and white orbiter, emblazoned with an American flag, rolled to a stop.

"The space shuttle has changed the way we view the world. It has changed the way we view our universe," he said. "There was a lot of emotion today but one thing is indisputable: America is not going to stop exploring

Over the course of the three-decade program, Canada has sent eight astronauts on 14 NASA flights while contributing key robotics as well as science experiments.

"It's an old vehicle, it has tiny computers, it was designed in the '60s and built in the '70s," he said in an interview with The Canadian Press, from his home near Houston.

"We've put this huge laboratory up there and now we start to use it for the next 10 or 15 years, so that is the immediate future of everybody's space program — including Canada," he said.

The bittersweet end to the storied shuttle career came 42 years after US astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first person to set foot on the Moon as part of the Apollo 11 mission.

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. The supplies will sustain space station operations for the next year. The 21-foot long, 15-foot diameter Raffaello brought back nearly 5,700 pounds of unneeded materials from the station.

Over the course of the program, five NASA shuttles -- Atlantis, Challenger, Columbia, Discovery and Endeavour -- have comprised a fleet designed as the world's first reusable space vehicles.

Since the first shuttle space flight launched on April 12, 1981, the five shuttles have traveled more than 542 million miles (872 million kilometers), and carried 355 people from 16 different countries, NASA said.

Columbia exploded in 2003 and Challenger was destroyed in 1986 in accidents that killed a total of 14 crew members.

Those disasters left only three in the space-flying fleet, along with Enterprise, a prototype that never flew in space. The quartet will become museum pieces in the coming months.

Marc Garneau, who became the first Canadian to go into space when he was launched aboard the shuttle Challenger in October 1984, says the return of Atlantis marked the end of an era "where we did incredible things."

But the astronaut-turned-politician says the all-purpose space vehicle was still too dangerous even if it made 135 flights.

"Two tragedies out of 135 flights is too many," he said in a recent interview with The Canadian Press.

During 30 years of shuttle flights, 14 astronauts died in two accidents. Challenger erupted into a fireball during its launch on Jan. 28, 1986, and Columbia broke apart on Feb. 1, 2003, as it returned to Earth.

With the shuttles' retirement, a Russian Soyuz space capsule will carry Hadfield to the orbiting space lab in late 2012.

Space shuttle Atlantis is revealed on Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida following the move of the rotating service structure (RSS).

We Have Liftoff!

Space shuttle Atlantis launches into history at 11:29 a.m. EDT from Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Atlantis Soars Into Space

Space shuttle Atlantis is seen through the window of a Shuttle Training Aircraft (STA)

 

            

 A 3D model of the space shuttle ascends in Google Earth.

Space Shuttle Program Announces Commemorative Patch Contest Winner

 

First Place:
Mr. Blake Dumesnil, Hamilton Sundstrand, Johnson Space Center


Second Place:
Ms. Jennifer Franzo, Michoud Assembly Facility, New Orleans
  Third Place:
Mr. Tim Gagnon, Kennedy Space Center, Florida