"Our job is to keep that legacy alive as we utilize ISS. "Without the shuttle we couldn't have built it," said Mike Suffredini, the International Space Station (ISS)'s program manger. Atlantis' last mission was one last chance to drop off 9,500 pounds (4,300 kilograms) of supplies and spare parts to keep the outpost running. Though the shuttles are now grounded forever, the space station will continue to operate through at least 2020. The football-field size laboratory in Earth orbit is one of the shuttle's prime legacies it would have been impossible to construct without the shuttle's unique capacity to carry large payloads to space. Shuttle officials have said it is fitting that the last shuttle mission, called STS-135, went to the International Space Station. The first American ever to orbit the Earth, famed Mercury astronaut John Glenn, celebrated his 90th birthday during the mission. The shuttle was in space during the 42nd anniversary of the first Apollo moon landing, as well as NASA's last Apollo mission - the Apollo-Soyuz flight that marked the first international cooperation in orbit. NASA's legacy was tightly wound into this final shuttle flight.Ītlantis returned to Earth on the 50th anniversary of the second American human spaceflight - the launch of Mercury astronaut Gus Grissom aboard the Liberty Bell 7 in 1961. (Image credit: collectSPACE/Robert Pearlman) From left to right: Commander Chris Ferguson, Pilot Doug Hurley and mission specialists Sandy Magnus and Rex Walheim. NASA’s final space shuttle crew waves American flags celebrating their Fourth of July arrival at Kennedy Space Center for their launch on July 8, 2011. On the space station, NASA astronaut Mike Fossum reported that he could see the glow from Atlantis' re-entry from the oribiting lab's Cupola observation deck. In Houston, hundreds of people flocked to NASA's Johnson Space Center to watch the final shuttle landing live on a huge TV screen from the home of Mission Control, where shuttle missions have been managed for the last three decades. He predicted feeling "a mix of apprehension, sadness and excitement about what the future might hold, wrapped up into one." "I know that I will feel a sense of completion, as well as a touch of sadness and just reflective reverence of what we've been able to accomplish over these last several years," said Kwatsi Alibaruho, the mission's lead flight director. When contemplating the shuttle's end, the word that has come up most often among those at NASA is "bittersweet" - a sadness that it has to end, but a joy that it achieved so much. "It’s a group of people unlike any other field because everyone's so passionate, so dedicated." "Really the heart and soul of the space program is the people that work in the space program," Magnus said from orbit. The space shuttle is a pinnacle of complex engineering and robotics, but it is also a very human machine, made possible only through the cooperative work of thousands of people in space and on the ground. "We're not going to fully appreciate the significance of the event until after the wheels have stopped." "We have had just an event-filled and packed mission," Ferguson said from space Wednesday (July 20). The astronauts launched July 8 on a 13-day trip to the International Space Station. They were the last of 355 spaceflyers to ride aboard the space shuttle over the years. God bless the United States of America."įerguson led a veteran crew of four on this last mission, including pilot Doug Hurley and mission specialists Sandra Magnus and Rex Walheim. Thank you for protecting us and bringing this program to such a fitting end. Thank you Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Endeavour, and our ship Atlantis. "There's a lot of emotion today, but one thing is indisputable: America is not going to stop exploring. "The space shuttle changed the way we viewed the world, and it changed the way we view our universe," he said. The 30-year space shuttle program, which began with the launch of Columbia on April 12, 1981, is at a close.
It was the 33rd voyage for Atlantis, and the 135th for NASA's reusable winged spaceships. It was the 135th and final shuttle flight. Space shuttle Atlantis is seen on the runway after making a predawn landing at NASA's Kennedy Space Center on Jto end the agency's 30-year shuttle program.