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Atlantis Landing

July 21, 2011 by · Comments Off on Atlantis Landing 

Atlantis LandingAtlantis Landing, Ending 30 years of unprecedented achievements and opening the way for the new era of U.S. of spaceflight, NASA floors of the space shuttle program became a “wheel stop” on Thursday concluded its 135th mission. The shuttle Atlantis and its crew of four astronauts slid home for the last time, ending a 13-day journey of more than five million miles with a landing at 5:57 am EDT at the Kennedy Center at NASA Florida. Landing was the night of 25 (19 and 78th night landing at Kennedy total) and landing 133rd in the history of the shuttle.

“The brave astronauts of STS-135 are emblematic of the shuttle program – qualified professionals from diverse backgrounds who urged the United States for continued leadership in space with many successes of the ship,” said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. “The last shuttle flight marks the end of an era, but today, we pledge to continue human spaceflight and taking the necessary and difficult steps to ensure -. U.S. leadership in human spaceflight in coming years ”

Since STS-1, launched on April 12, 1981, 355 people from 16 countries flew 852 times aboard the shuttle. The five spacecraft traveled more than 542 million miles and received more than 2,000 experiments in the fields of the Earth, astronomy, life sciences and materials.

The shuttle docked with two space stations, the Mir and International Space Station. Shuttle deployed 180 charges, including satellites, 52 returned from space and recover, repair and redeploy seven spacecraft.

The STS-135 crew consists of Commander Chris Ferguson; pilot Doug Hurley, mission specialists Rex Walheim and Sandra Magnus. Delivered more than 9,400 kilos of spare parts, equipment parts and other supplies in the multipurpose logistics module Raffaello – including 2677 pounds of food – to sustain the operations of the space station next year. The 21 feet long, 15 meters in diameter, brought nearly 5,700 kilos Raffaello materials that are not required from the station.

A welcome ceremony for the astronauts will be Friday, July 22 in Houston. The public is invited to attend the event at 16:00 CDT NASA’s Hangar 990 at Ellington Field. Doors at Ellington Field will open at 3:30 pm the ceremony will be broadcast live on NASA Television. For NASA TV down information, schedules and links to streaming video, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

STS-135 was the 135th shuttle flight and last flight of Atlantis 33a and 37a of the shuttle mission devoted to station assembly and maintenance.

For more information about the STS-135 mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/shuttle

For information on the space station, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/station

For information on the activities of NASA’s future exploration, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/next

SOURCE NASA

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