NASA's Space Shuttle Era Ends - Atlantis the Last Lands Safely to retire
Space shuttle Atlantis lifted off July 8 on the final flight of the shuttle program, STS-135, a 13-day mission to the International Space Station. Atlantis carried a crew of four and the Raffaello multipurpose logistics module containing supplies and spare parts for the space station.
The Space Shuttle Carrying the four STS-135 astronauts landed safely July 21, 2011, 5:57 a.m. EDT at Kennedy Space Center, Florida. This marks the end of more than 30 years space shuttling. In this back drop here a small write up on one of the most amazing stuff of human - "Space Shuttle"....
Space Shuttle - An Unique Man Made Marvel
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| ATLANTIS - The Unimaginable Journey |
NASA's space shuttle fleet began setting records with its first launch on April 12, 1981 and continues to set high marks of achievement and endurance. Starting with Columbia and continuing with Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour, the spacecraft has carried people into orbit repeatedly, launched, recovered and repaired satellites, conducted cutting-edge research and built the largest structure in space, the International Space Station.
It is the fastest winged vehicle ever to fly, with an orbital velocity of 17,500 mph, 10 times the speed of a high-powered rifle bullet. It is the only winged vehicle to reach orbit, and the only reusable space launch and landing vehicle. The shuttle can carry cargos of substantial weight and dimensions. It has taken into space more than half the mass of all payloads launched by all nations since Sputnik in 1957 – 3,450,143 pounds.More singular still is the shuttle’s ability to return payloads from space. It has brought back from orbit more than 97 percent of all mass returned to Earth, a total of 225,574 pounds.
As humanity's first reusable spacecraft, the space shuttle pushed the bounds of discovery ever farther, requiring not only advanced technologies but the tremendous effort of a vast workforce. Thousands of civil servants and contractors throughout NASA's field centers and across the nation have demonstrated an unwavering commitment to mission success and the greater goal of space exploration.
Atlantis was NASA's fourth space shuttle orbiter to join the fleet at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Atlantis also is known inside the space agency by its designation Orbiter Vehicle-104, or OV-104.
Construction of Atlantis began March 30, 1980, and it rolled out of the assembly plant in Palmdale, Calif., in March 1985. It first launched Oct. 3, 1985.
Atlantis is named after the two-masted boat that served as the primary research vessel for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts from 1930 to 1966. The boat had a 17-member crew and accommodated up to five scientists who worked in two onboard laboratories, examining water samples and marine life. Atlantis also served as the in-orbit launch site for many noteworthy spacecraft, including planetary probes Magellan and Galileo, as well as the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory.
Starting with STS-71, Atlantis pioneered the Shuttle-Mir missions, flying the first seven missions to dock with the Russian space station. When linked, Atlantis and Mir together formed the largest spacecraft in orbit at the time.
After travelling more than 120 million miles Atlantis will now join it's collegues in the retirees club...