Atlantis: Last Shuttle Launch Atlantis: Last Space Shuttle Launch By Elizabeth Howell, Space.com Contributor | June 29, 2013 07:41am ET MORE Atlantis was the fourth shuttle constructed and the last one to fly into space. It performed well in 25 years of service, flying 33 missions that included secret missions for the U.S. military, ferrying astronauts to and from space stations and launching several probes. The shuttle gained a reputation of being the unsung workhorse of the shuttle fleet because it sent so many satellites into space. It also has the distinction of flying the final shuttle mission before the fleet was retired in 2011. The space shuttle Atlantis is seen over the Bahamas prior to a perfect docking with the International Space Station at 11:07 a.m. (EDT) on July 10, 2011 on Flight Day 3 of NASA's last shuttle flight. Part of a Russian Progress spacecraft which is docked to the station is in the foreground. Credit: NASA Atlantis was named after a ship that did work for Massachusetts' Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute between 1930 and 1966.

The sailing ship was the first to image the ocean floor using electronic sounding devices. New construction technique and early missions Construction work started on shuttle Atlantis on March 3, 1980, in Palmdale, Calif. Using what it had learned from its other shuttles, NASA built Atlantis in less time than its siblings. It was also lighter than the other shuttles. NASA used thermal protection covers on the top of the shuttle rather than individual tiles, which saved substantial time and money during its construction. Atlantis ended up almost 3.5 tons lighter than Columbia, weighing in at 151,315 pounds. It took about six months to get ready for its first mission, which lifted off Oct. 3, 1985. To this day, Atlantis' first flight is shrouded in secrecy. Mission STS-51J took five people into space and lasted four days. At the time, NASA did periodic flights for the Department of Defense, sending classified payloads into space. Just over one month later, Atlantis headed for space again on Nov. 26, 1985, on mission STS-61B. It lofted three communications satellites into orbit.

Additionally, Atlantis' crew members did two experimental spacewalks devoted to learning about assembling structures in space. The Challenger explosion in January 1986 grounded the remaining shuttle fleet for two years. It wasn't until December 1988 that Atlantis flew again, this time bringing another classified payload into space on STS-27. Sending probes towards the planets Atlantis' fourth flight, STS-30, marked a historic first for NASA. On board the shuttle was Magellan , a spacecraft that would be launched toward Venus. This was the first time that NASA launched an interplanetary probe from the shuttle's payload bay. The astronauts sent the satellite on its way remarkably quickly, only six hours after launch. Magellan fired its rocket stages successfully to coast to Venus. Its radar peered beneath Venus' thick clouds and eventually mapped 98 percent of the hot planet's surface. STS-30 marked the beginning of a flurry of satellite and classified payload launches for the orbiter. Atlantis repeated its interplanetary feat on STS-34, when it sent the Galileo probe toward Jupiter.

It then flew two classified missions for the Department of Defense before sending yet another probe into space on STS-37, in 1991: the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory . Astronauts had to do an emergency spacewalk to fix a high-gain antenna that refused to deploy. Once that was fixed, the observatory successfully watched supernovas and neutron stars for nine years. Atlantis went on to deploy a Tracking and Data Relay Satellite on its next mission, STS-43. Next, it lofted a defense satellite on STS-44, and a European tethered gravity experimental satellite on STS-46. Seven straight to Mir In the mid-1990s, Atlantis' focus changed again. NASA and Russia had brokered an agreement for American astronauts to stay aboard the Mir space station, which would give both sides experience in working together in space ahead of the planned International Space Station . Space shuttle Atlantis rolls out to Launch Pad 39A on Nov. 10, 2007 for its launch in December. Credit: NASA TV. NASA flew 11 missions to Mir, and Atlantis shouldered most of the work.

The shuttle flew seven times in a row to the orbiting science platform, ferrying astronauts back and forth. STS-71 lifted off on June 27, 1995, to usher in several historic moments. The flight was the first shuttle mission to head to the Mir space station . When some of the crew swapped places to head back home, Atlantis also became the first shuttle to see its astronaut manifest change in space. Also, the mission marked the 100th human spaceflight launch from Kennedy Space Center . Atlantis and Mir, when hooked together, formed the largest spacecraft orbiting Earth, at the time. The space station and space shuttle together weighed about 225 tons, or almost half a million pounds. While on board, the joint U.S.-Russia crew brought equipment into the space station and did several biomedical experiments. The shuttle flew again to the station in November 1995 on mission STS-74. Among the astronauts on board was Chris Hadfield, the first and only Canadian to make it to the Mir space station. On STS-79, Atlantis brought home Shannon Lucid after she spent 188 days in space, a record for an American astronaut.

Atlantis also returned American Jerry Linenger to Earth after he had a challenging stay aboard Mir, which included a fire aboard the station as well as the need to do ongoing repairs on the aging facility. For NASA / Robert Z. Pearlman Rolling to the launch pad Atlantis began its 3.4-mile trek from the cavernous Vehicle Assembly Building to the launch pad Tuesday night at 8:42 p.m. EDT (0042 June 1 GMT). The roughly 7-hour journey ended at 3:29 a.m. EDT (0729 GMT), about an hour after Endeavour touched down. "Seeing Atlantis roll out was really when it started to hit me that we're never going to see that again," Mike Moses, chair of the shuttle mission management team, said in a news briefing today. "So that was a pretty big, emotional event. But again, it was tempered with turning around and focusing on landing." [ Photos: Shuttle Atlantis' Last Launch Pad Trek ] Having two shuttle milestones within close proximity to one another was a unique and special event that drew large crowds and also served as a poignant reminder of the program's imminent end.

"It's a very good day today, and I really want to thank the folks down here for all the dedication and hard work they put in," said NASA's space operations chief Bill Gerstenmaier. The plan for the future After Atlantis returns to Earth, NASA's space shuttle program will officially come to a close. NASA is ending its 30-year shuttle program to focus on developing new spaceships and rockets for exploration beyond low-Earth orbit, such as missions to an asteroid, the moon or Mars. Yet, until the next generation vehicles are ready, NASA faces a gap in human spaceflight during which time the agency will have to rely on Russian-built Soyuz spacecraft to reach the International Space Station . "Times of transition are very difficult, and we're certainly in a time of transition," Magnus said. "As we're moving through the transition, it's difficult to see the big picture because we're all caught up in the little details.

I think in the end, we'll end up with a good plan and we'll have a solid future ahead of us and we're just working our way through this very difficult transition in the meantime." And while the legacy of the space shuttle program will live on, the program's retirement will also signify the end of an iconic part of the country's space program. "I think we're losing that piece of identity," Walheim said. "That is a quintessential American vehicle. You point to that and people know it's from the United States." Reaching farther out into the cosmos But, to build upon the achievements of the space shuttle program and to advance human exploration, requires NASA to push further out into the solar system, he said. "As much as the space shuttle has done its mission to launch the interplanetary probes, to launch the Hubble Space Telescope , to build the space station – it's complete," Walheim said. "So it's done its job, and it's done its job admirably. Now it's time to move onto something new.

We've got to get out of low-Earth orbit, so to do that we need a new vehicle." But, the space shuttle era will always be remembered as a critical chapter in the nation's history, and Atlantis' upcoming STS-135 flight will be a part of that rich heritage. "I think we can look back and really take the sweet part of all this and say that we are blessed to have been a part of it – all of us, not just the chosen few who are lucky enough to fly it," Ferguson said. "As a country, I think we can look back and say, 'I remember when we flew the space shuttle and I remember the proud moment I felt when I felt the rumble in my chest when I watched the space shuttle launch, and I long for those days again.'" You can follow SPACE.com Staff Writer Denise Chow on Twitter @denisechow . Visit SPACE.com for complete coverage of Endeavour's final mission STS-134 or follow us @Spacedotcom and on Facebook .

Editor's Recommendations NASA’s final space shuttle mission comes to an end - Jul 21, 2011 - HISTORY.com NASA’s final space shuttle mission comes to an end Share this: NASA’s final space shuttle mission comes to an end Author NASA’s final space shuttle mission comes to an end URL Publisher A+E Networks On this day in 2011, NASA’s space shuttle program completes its final, and 135th, mission, when the shuttle Atlantis lands at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. During the program’s 30-year history, its five orbiters—Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour—carried more than 350 people into space and flew more than 500 million miles, and shuttle crews conducted important research, serviced the Hubble Space Telescope and helped in the construction of the International Space Station, among other activities. NASA retired the shuttles to focus on a deep-space exploration program that could one day send astronauts to asteroids and Mars.

In January 1972, two-and-a-half years after America put the first man on the moon in July 1969, President Richard Nixon publicly announced that NASA would develop a space transportation system featuring a space vehicle capable of shuttling “repeatedly from Earth to orbit and back.” Nine years later, on April 12, 1981, at Kennedy Space Center, the first shuttle, Columbia, lifted off on its inaugural mission. Over the course of the next 54 hours, the two astronauts aboard NASA’s first reusable spacecraft successfully tested all its systems and orbited the Earth 37 times before landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California. In 1983, a second shuttle, Challenger, was put into service. It flew nine missions before breaking apart shortly after the launch of its 10th mission, on January 28, 1986. All seven crew members were killed, including high school teacher Christa McAuliffe, who had won a national contest to be the first U.S. civilian to fly aboard the space shuttle. In the aftermath of the disaster, the shuttle program was grounded until 1988.

The program’s third shuttle, Discovery, made its first flight in 1984. Atlantis entered the fleet in 1985, and was followed by Endeavour in 1992. The shuttle program experienced its second major disaster on February 1, 2003, when just minutes before Columbia was scheduled to land at Kennedy Space Center and conclude its 28th mission, it broke apart while re-entering the atmosphere over Texas. All seven astronauts on board perished. Afterward, the shuttle fleet was grounded until July 2005, when Discovery was launched on the program’s 114th mission. By the time Discovery completed its 39th and final mission (the most of any shuttle) in March 2011, it had flown 148 million miles, made 5,830 orbits of Earth and spent 365 days in space. Endeavour completed its 25th and final mission in June 2011. That mission was commanded by Capt. Mark Kelly, husband of former U.S. congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

On July 8, 2011, Atlantis was launched on its 33rd mission. With four crew members aboard, Atlantis flew thousands of pounds of supplies and extra parts to the International Space Station; it was the 37th shuttle flight to make the trip. Thirteen days later, on July 21, Atlantis touched down at Kennedy Space Center at 5:57 a.m., after a journey of more than 5 million miles, during which it orbited the Earth 200 times. Upon landing, the flight’s commander, Capt. Christopher J. Ferguson, said, “Mission complete, Houston. After serving the world for over 30 years, the space shuttle has earned its place in history, and it’s come to a final stop.” During its 26 years in service, Atlantis flew almost 126 million miles, circled Earth 4,848 times and spent 307 days in space. The estimated price tag for the entire space shuttle program, from development to retirement, was $209 billion. After completing their final missions, the orbiters were sent to museums around the country: Discovery went to the National Air and Space Museum Steven F.

Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia, Endeavour to California Science Center in Los Angeles and Atlantis to Kennedy Space Center. A space shuttle prototype, the Enterprise, is now housed at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York. Related Videos 9 Weird Things That Flew on NASA's Space Shuttles 9 Weird Things That Flew on NASA's Space Shuttles <a href=' Chow</a>, SPACE.com Staff Writer<br /><a href="" >Space.com</a> Pin it Share When NASA's space shuttles launch into orbit, they don't just carry astronauts and supplies into the final frontier. There's a lot of other weird stuff that makes the out-of-this-world journey, too. NASA's last space shuttle mission will launch Friday, July 8 on the Atlantis orbiter to deliver spare parts to the International Space Station. The mission will be the 135th and last flight for the program, which began in 1981. But over the course of 30 years, the space shuttles have flown some peculiar objects into orbit.

The list of odd stuff that flew aboard the shuttles is a long one, and includes the Olympic torch, a replica of the golden spike from the First Transcontinental Railroad, and rocks from the top of Mount Everest and the surface of the moon, just to name a few. Here nine recent space oddities carried into orbit on NASA shuttles: Cans of Coca-Cola & Pepsi In 1985, special modified cans of Coca-Cola and Pepsi soda rode aboard the space shuttle Challenger on its STS-51F mission. The trip added more fuel to the so-called "Cola Wars" between the Coca-Cola Company and Pepsi, Co. "Originally, only Coca-Cola was scheduled to fly," said Robert Pearlman, editor of collectSPACE.com, a website that tracks space-flown artifacts, and a SPACE.com contributor. "In addition to their desire to offer carbonated beverages for astronauts, Coca-Cola was also observing the effects of spaceflight on changes in taste perception with the goal of understanding altered tastes among target populations on Earth, such as the elderly." "When Pepsico Inc. learned Coca-Cola was aboard, they approached NASA to fly as well, and quickly devised their own shaving cream can-inspired design," said Pearlman.

The cans, which were officially dubbed the Carbonated Beverage Dispenser Evaluation payload, were part of an experiment by the two soft drink giants to test packaging and methods of dispensing the liquids in a microgravity environment. At the end of Challenger's mission, however, the astronaut crewmembers deemed the experiment a failure due to the lack of refrigeration and insufficient protection from microgravity effects. [ Most Memorable Space Shuttle Missions ] Coca-Cola later flew a dispenser specially designed for microgravity to give astronauts the opportunity to enjoy Coke and Diet Coke in space. The dispenser flew during the space shuttle Discovery's STS-63 mission in 1995. The beverages were dispensed into sealed drinking cups and the liquid was chilled on the spot using cooling coils attached to the storage container. A second-generation dispenser was also flown on Endeavour's STS-77 mission in 1996. This version held Coke, Diet Coke and Powerade, an energy drink. The device, however, did not work as expected on orbit.

The New York Mets' Home Plate In 2009, as the New York Mets organization prepared to move its baseball team into the new Citi Field in Queens, N.Y., a piece of hardware from the team's old home, Shea Stadium, made a special trip into space. On May 11, 2009, the home plate from Shea Stadium launched into orbit on the space shuttle Atlantis' STS-125 mission— the last trip to the Hubble Space Telescope. "The only problem was the plate wouldn't fit as is into the shuttle's locker designated for memorabilia," said Pearlman. "Rather than leave it 'home,' Massimino was able to trim off the plate’s black-colored border using a razor, flying just the 'white part.' The two parts were reunited once the plate was back on the ground." Astronaut Mike Massimino, a New Yorker and devoted Mets fan, brought the plate with him and his six crewmates on their mission to overhaul the aging Hubble Space Telescope. After journeying into space, the plate was returned to Earth, and Massimino was invited to throw out the ceremonial first pitch at a baseball game upon his return.

Shea Stadium in Queens's Flushing neighborhood was demolished after serving as the home of the Mets from 1964 until 2008. The Mets placed the flown plate on display in Citi Field, which opened its doors in the spring of 2009. Buzz Lightyear – To Infinity and Beyond! As part of an educational and public outreach mission, NASA teamed up with Disney to launch an action figure of the beloved character Buzz Lightyear, from Disney-Pixar's film "Toy Story," into space. A 12-inch tall Buzz flew to the International Space Station on Discovery's STS-124 mission in May 2008. The intrepid figurine spent a whopping 468 days at the orbiting outpost, during which time he starred in educational videos as part of joint NASA and Disney outreach programs. After more than a year in space, Buzz hitched a ride back to Earth on Discovery's STS-128 mission, which landed at Edwards Air Force Base in California on Sept. 11, 2009. On Oct.

2, 2009, the action figure was even treated to a ticker tape parade at Walt Disney World in Florida to celebrate the successful completion of his long-duration mission in space. "Joining Lightyear for his hero’s welcome back to the 'Happiest Place on Earth' was his namesake, Buzz Aldrin. Disney asked permission to name the cartoon space ranger after the real moonwalker before the first ‘Toy Story’ movie was released in 1995," Pearlman said. [ Photos of Buzz Lightyear's Disney Homecoming ] Luke Skywalker's Lightsaber Fans of the iconic "'Star Wars" films celebrated a moment where fiction met reality, when a lightsaber prop from the sci-fi movies flew on the space shuttle Discovery's STS-120 mission. "The lightsaber's flight was of particular interest to one STS-120 crew member, a self-described big 'Star Wars' fan who also woke during the mission to the theme from the movies," said Pearlman.

"The song was chosen by Parazynski's son, who just happens to be named Luke." One of Luke Skywalker's lightsabers was stowed onboard Discovery as it launched to the International Space Station to deliver a new module to the orbiting laboratory on Oct. 23, 2007. The prop was the original one used by actor Mark Hamill, who played Skywalker, in director George Lucas' 1977 film "Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi." The lightsaber flew to the space station and back to mark the 30th anniversary of the film franchise. Lucas was in attendance to watch the STS-120 launch, and at the end of the mission, the Jedi weapon was returned to him and his company, LucasFilm. Ashes of Star Trek's Creator In a fitting way to immortalize Star Trek's creator, Gene Roddenberry, some of the sci-fi legend's ashes were flown in a small capsule on the space shuttle Columbia's STS-52 mission in 1992. Columbia delivered the tiny canister into outer space, where it orbited the Earth 160 times before being returned on the shuttle.

"To the best of everyone's knowledge, it was the first time that human remains were launched on a manned spacecraft," Pearlman said. A portion of Roddenberry's ashes were also launched into space in 1997 by the Houston-based firm Celestis, Inc., which offers a range of memorial spaceflight services. The remains of Roddenberry, who died in 1991, journeyed into the cosmos along with 23 other peoples' ashes in the company's debut Founders Flight, aboard an Orbital Sciences Pegasus rocket. Roddenberry's wife, Majel Barrett Roddenberry, died in 2008, and her ashes, along with some of her husband's, will be launched on Celestis' Voyager Memorial Spaceflight Service, which is slated for 2012. Sports Jerseys of All Kinds Astronauts, like anyone else, have their favorite sports teams and players. As a result, many spaceflyers have chosen to show their team spirit by taking jerseys into space with them. In just one example, Discovery's STS-124 astronauts represented a mixed bag of team allegiances.

Among the items flown on Discovery, which launched on May 31, 2008, was the last game-worn jersey from Craig Biggio, a former second baseman, catcher and outfielder for the Houston Astros. Biggio played his entire 20-year career for the Astros and made his final Major League Baseball appearance on Sept. 30, 2007 before retiring from the sport. A back-up Super Bowl XLII jersey belonging to New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning also made the journey aboard Discovery. Manning and the Giants defeated the New England Patriots to win Super Bowl XLII in 2008, and Manning was named the game's Most Valuable Player. Four of Discovery's STS-124 astronauts hail from the New York/New Jersey area, which is home to the Giants, and NASA's astronauts all live and train for their missions at Johnson Space Center in Houston, located south of the Astros' home, Minute Maid Park. “Not all flown jerseys came from ball-involved sports. STS-124 astronaut Karen Nyberg took with her one of cyclist Lance Armstrong's yellow Tour de France jerseys,” said Pearlman.

Jamestown Colony Cargo Tag A small piece of history, in the form of a metal cargo tag from the Jamestown colony , flew aboard the space shuttle Atlantis on its STS-117 mission in June 2007. The historic tag was unearthed at Jamestown, the location of the first permanent English settlement in the Americas in 1607. Essentially a colonial version of a modern-day luggage tag, the plaque, which is etched with the name of its destination, "Yames Towne," was likely used to mark merchandise that had been stored in London before being shipped, according to the Historic Jamestowne website. The marker effectively logged more than four million miles over the course of four centuries, traveling first from England to the early American settlement, and then, 400 years later, to the International Space Station and back. NASA flew the cargo tag with four commemorative coins on Atlantis to honor early American explorers. The historic metal piece was returned to Historic Jamestowne at the end of the flight for display in a museum. "The same flight that launched the Jamestown tag also carried notable metal tokens of another type — Monopoly board game pieces," said Pearlman.

"The game pieces came from the “Here & Now” edition of the popular real estate game, which featured a property square for NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas." NASCAR Starter Flags As the final minutes ticked down toward Atlantis' launch on its STS-122 mission on Feb. 7, 2008, it may have been more appropriate for NASA's launch director to state, "gentlemen, start your space shuttle main engines." After all, the orbiter was taking three NASCAR starter flags with it on its flight into space. Three green starter flags were packed on the shuttle in celebration of the agency's 50th anniversary and the 50th year of NASCAR's Daytona 500 race. Atlantis deliver the European science laboratory, Columbus, to the International Space Station. After an 11-day flight, the flags were returned to Earth. One was presented to Ryan Newman, the winner of the 2008 Daytona 500. The second was placed on public display at the Florida racetrack, and the third was kept by NASA as a special commemorative piece.

"Just one of Atlantis' main gear tires, on which the NASCAR flags landed, could carry the load of the entire starting line-up of a NASCAR race — 40 race cars — all hitting the pavement at 250 miles per hour," Pearlman said. Dirt from Yankee Stadium A vial of dirt from the pitcher's mound at Yankee Stadium, the home of Major League Baseball's New York Yankees, flew on the space shuttle Endeavour's STS-123 mission in 2008. Astronaut Garrett Reisman , a fervent Yankee fan, brought the small container of dirt with him, along with other mementos of his favorite team, including a banner and hat autographed by George Steinbrenner, who was the principal owner of the team for 37 years, from 1973 to his death in July 2010. In a cosmic first, Reisman threw out the ceremonial first pitch via video from the International Space Station prior to the start of the Yankees' game versus the Boston Red Sox on April 16, 2008. Reisman's pitch in microgravity was the first one from space in Yankee Stadium's history.

"Launching on the space shuttle and living aboard the International Space Station is a once-in-a-lifetime experience," Reisman said at the time. "But as a lifelong Yankees fan, throwing out the first pitch at a Yankees-Red Sox game is also a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I am really honored to have this opportunity in such a historic season in the House that Ruth Built, and I would like to thank the Yankees for being so supportive of our mission up here in space. From Earth's orbit, but still deep inside the Yankees Universe, let me say, 'Go Yanks!'" You can follow SPACE.com Staff Writer Denise Chow on Twitter @denisechow . Visit SPACE.com for complete coverage of Atlantis's final mission STS-135 or follow us @Spacedotcom and on Facebook . The space shuttle's history in pictures | ZDNet Space shuttle in space Nasa is approaching the end of an era with the retirement of the space shuttle. The oldest craft in the fleet, Discovery, completed its final voyage in March , while Endeavour finished its career in April. The launch of Atlantis on Friday marks the 135th and final space shuttle mission.

For more than 30 years the space shuttle has been the workhorse of Nasa, carrying hundreds of astronauts into space, launching numerous satellites and helping to construct the International Space Station . Pictured above is Challenger in orbit in 1983. The space shuttle's story began in 1969, months after the moon landing, when US officials began putting thought into a reusable spacecraft that would replace the Saturn rockets that had powered the Apollo missions. Following on from designs tested by Nasa throughout the 1950s and 60s, the space shuttle had evolved by 1972 into an orbiter craft that was carried into space on rockets and returned to Earth unpowered, landing like a conventional glider — albeit one that weighs over 100 tons. Published: July 8, 2011 -- 14:01 GMT (07:01 PDT) Photo by: Nasa Caption by: Jon Yeomans Orbiter prototpye Enterprise in flight Above, the orbiter prototype Enterprise separates from the 747 shuttle carrier aircraft for its first flight without a protective tail cone, in 1977.

Caption by: Jon Yeomans Space shuttle on launch pad Above, Columbia sits on the launch pad for the first shuttle flight into space on 12 April, 1981. John W Young and Robert L Crippen flew the shuttle into orbit for a two-day mission to test the orbiter's functionality. The orbiter measures 78 feet in width and 122 feet in length, of which nearly half is the cargo bay. The two narrow rockets on the side of the shuttle's body are solid-propellant rockets, a major innovation for the shuttle programme. Together they provide over 80 percent of the lift-off thrust. These rockets fall to Earth after two minutes, after which they are recovered from the sea, refurbished and reused for later missions. The final component of the space shuttle design is the external booster tank, which provides fuel for the orbiter's three engines during launch. Around eight and a half minutes after blast-off, the external tank is jettisoned into the sea. It is the only component of the launch system not reused. The external tank is usually orange; on the first two shuttle flights it was painted white as a precaution to help radiate heat. Nasa engineers later decided this was unnecessary.

Published: July 8, 2011 -- 14:01 GMT (07:01 PDT) Photo by: Nasa Shuttle launch Discovery arcs into the sky after launching on a mission in 2009. All shuttle missions launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Until 2007, Nasa avoided launching the craft in December-January time as it was feared its 1970s-era computers might suffer a glitch on New Year's Eve that would set the ship's clock back to zero. On launch, the shuttle must hit a speed of almost 28,968 kph. After eight seconds, the craft is travelling at just 259kph; by the 60-second mark, it is speeding at 1,609kph. By the time the external tank has dropped away, the shuttle has burned more than 1.59 million kg of fuel. Once in orbit, it has a velocity of 17,500mph, making it the fastest winged vehicle in history. Steven Lindsey, commander of Discovery's last mission , highlighted the shuttle's adaptability in an interview with CBS News.

"It can't leave low Earth orbit, but it can do everything else," he said. His opinions were echoed by Atlantis astronaut Sandra Magnus before the final mission. "It built the space station, it's done science missions that ranged from taking the Spacelab up, to the big radar missions we've done, it's done astronomy, it's done biological science, materials science and then it's done satellite deploy, repair and retrieve," she said. "It's an incredible legacy this vehicle has given us." Published: July 8, 2011 -- 14:01 GMT (07:01 PDT) Photo by: Nasa Caption by: Jon Yeomans Space shuttle cockpit The shuttle features four onboard computers running the same software on different hardware, which together check each other's work. A fifth backup computer runs an entirely separate system in the event the other four fail. In 1990, Nasa upgraded the computers, raising the memory 2.5 times to 1MB. From 1999, 'glass cockpit' technology was added to the orbiters, providing more up-to-date display screens on the flight deck.

Published: July 8, 2011 -- 14:01 GMT (07:01 PDT) Photo by: Nasa Shuttle landing in desert Discovery glides to a landing at Edwards Air Force base in 2008. The shuttle typically begins its return flight around half the world away from its landing site. It angles its nose up at 40 degrees, allowing the black tiling underneath to bear the brunt of the 1,600° C heat of re-entry. When the craft drops below the speed of sound, at around 50,000 feet, the commander takes control. Despite the similarity of its shape to an ordinary aircraft, the shuttle makes its final approach to the runway 20 times faster than the average plane. The shuttle was originally intended to have air-breathing jet engines to allow it to fly as an aircraft on re-entry; however, cost and weight considerations left it entirely unpowered during the descent, making it the heaviest and fastest glider in history.

Published: July 8, 2011 -- 14:01 GMT (07:01 PDT) Photo by: Nasa Caption by: Jon Yeomans Hubble Space Telescope repair In its 30-year history, the space-shuttle programme has carried 179 payloads into orbit and retrieved 52 for return to Earth. (In fact, Nasa calculates that 97 percent of man-made material that has returned safely from space has done so courtesy of a space shuttle). One of the shuttle's most important missions was Endeavour's successful repair of the Hubble Space Telescope on mission STS-61 in 1993 (above), three years after Discovery had deployed it. Hubble's images were famously distorted by a mirror that had been ground to the wrong shape. Although it was impossible to remove the mirror in space, the technically fraught servicing mission in 1993 (captured in an early Imax film) corrected the telescope by fitting the COSTAR adaptive package into the telescope, and paved the way for ground-breaking observations. Best known for its stunning images of the cosmos, Hubble made its one-millionth science observation on 4 July, 2011.

It has captured 50 terabytes of data to date. Published: July 8, 2011 -- 14:01 GMT (07:01 PDT) Photo by: Nasa Caption by: Jon Yeomans Challenger disaster On 28 January, 1986, Challenger exploded 73 seconds after launch at an altitude of nine miles. All six astronauts on board perished, including Christa McAuliffe, a teacher who had won a much-published competition to go into space. The tragedy was blamed on the failure of an O-ring joint on one of the solid-fuel booster rockets, partly due to extremely cold weather conditions in Florida. As a result of the inquiry that followed, Nasa tightened up safety procedures and the cost of shuttle missions soared, eradicating the notion of the space shuttle programme as a cost-effective route into space. Nasa returned to space 32 months later with Discovery's Return to Flight mission, having made more than 400 changes to its orbiters and rockets. A replacement shuttle, Endeavour, was commissioned in 1987 and made its first flight in 1992.

Published: July 8, 2011 -- 14:01 GMT (07:01 PDT) Photo by: Nasa Caption by: Jon Yeomans Space shuttle docked with ISS The first American woman in space was Sally Ride on Challenger in 1983 (she flew on the same orbiter again in 1984). In 1995, Eileen Collins became the first woman to pilot a space shuttle, on Discovery. She became the first female mission commander in 1999, on Columbia. Senator John Glenn became the oldest man to go into space when he flew on Discovery in 1998 at the age of 77. In 1962, Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth. The space shuttle programme completed nine dockings with the Russian space station Mir. It has docked with the International Space Station 36 times, prior to its final mission. Excluding Atlantis's final flight, the programme has carried 355 individuals into space. It has racked up 20,830 orbits and 1,310 days of flight time.

Published: July 8, 2011 -- 14:01 GMT (07:01 PDT) Photo by: Nasa Caption by: Jon Yeomans Wreckage of Columbia On 1 February, 2003, Columbia was destroyed on re-entry during mission STS-107, resulting in the death of all seven crewmembers. A suitcase-sized block of insulating foam from the external tank had broken off during launch and punched a hole in the tiles on one wing, rendering it vulnerable to the super-heated gases of re-entry. Pictured above, officials comb through the retrieved wreckage of Columbia. The disaster spelled the beginning of the end of the shuttle programme. Discovery once again carried out the Return to Flight mission in 2005, but the programme was due to be wrapped up by 2010 (later extended to 2011), as Nasa cast about for new ways of travelling into space. Critics of the shuttle said the design had been flawed from the very beginning. "The shuttle made America dependent on a fragile, expensive, risky launch system," space policy expert professor John Logsdon said in a Guardian interview .

Logsdon noted that its design was influenced by the US Air Force, which insisted that the shuttle be able to fly at angle that would allow it to release spy satellites. While this never happened in practice, the shuttle was lumbered with a heavier heat shield than it needed. As early as 1993, a Nasa report recommended replacing the already out-dated system by 2000. "The United States has advanced multiple proposals since at least the mid-1980s to build a space shuttle follow-on that would be less expensive and safer to operate," Nasa's chief historian, Roger Launius, wrote on his blog . "At the same time, the target date for space shuttle replacement shifted further into the future over the years." Published: July 8, 2011 -- 14:01 GMT (07:01 PDT) Photo by: Nasa Caption by: Jon Yeomans Space shuttle landing In 2004, then-President Bush announced the Constellation programme would develop new technology to replace the space shuttle. Budget overruns led to the project being cancelled by President Obama in 2010.

Some of Constellation's technology has, however, found its way into the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle , intended for journeys into deep space. Concerns about the cost and purpose of manned spaceflight cloud Nasa's future. "There is every reason to believe that future human spaceflight vehicles will require an investment beyond the level normally granted to Nasa's programmes," said Roger Launius, citing a figure of around $240bn (£150bn). Nasa continues to explore the idea of partnering with private companies to develop commercial manned spacecraft technology. In April, it advanced funding of $270m to four projects that could lead to working space taxis by 2015. "I just don't know if we have that audacity now to build something nearly as ambitious as the shuttle," said astronaut Alvin Drew , following Discovery's last mission. The space shuttle Discovery will be displayed near Washington at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's Steven F Udvar-Hazy Center. Atlantis will remain at the Kennedy Space Center visitors' complex, while the Endeavour will be displayed at the California Science Center in Los Angeles.

Published: July 8, 2011 -- 14:01 GMT (07:01 PDT) Photo by: Nasa Buran The little-known Buran shuttle was the Russian equivalent of the US space shuttle. It began development in 1974 and was suspended in 1993, having made just one test flight in 1988, when it completed two orbits of the Earth with two cosmonauts on board. Funding issues and the collapse of the Soviet Union put paid to the Buran project. The orbiter was retired to a hangar in Kazakhstan, where it was destroyed by a roof collapse in 2002. Get the latest technology news and analysis, blogs and reviews delivered directly to your inbox with ZDNet UK's newsletters . Published: July 8, 2011 -- 14:01 GMT (07:01 PDT) Photo by: Wikimedia Space shuttle in space Nasa is approaching the end of an era with the retirement of the space shuttle. The oldest craft in the fleet, Discovery, completed its final voyage in March , while Endeavour finished its career in April.

The launch of Atlantis on Friday marks the 135th and final space shuttle mission. For more than 30 years the space shuttle has been the workhorse of Nasa, carrying hundreds of astronauts into space, launching numerous satellites and helping to construct the International Space Station . Pictured above is Challenger in orbit in 1983. The space shuttle's story began in 1969, months after the moon landing, when US officials began putting thought into a reusable spacecraft that would replace the Saturn rockets that had powered the Apollo missions. Following on from designs tested by Nasa throughout the 1950s and 60s, the space shuttle had evolved by 1972 into an orbiter craft that was carried into space on rockets and returned to Earth unpowered, landing like a conventional glider — albeit one that weighs over 100 tons. Published: July 8, 2011 -- 14:01 GMT (07:01 PDT) Caption by: Jon Yeomans What does the final shuttle flight mean for space exploration? | Science | The Guardian Final space shuttle mission What does the final shuttle flight mean for space exploration?

After more than 130 missions over 30 years and at a cost of £120bn, the space shuttle programme ends on 8 July with the final launch of Atlantis. Two veterans of the flights talk about the thrill of takeoff, the view from above and the next step for mankind in space Discovery takes off from the Kennedy Space Centre in 1988. Photograph: Roger Ressmeyer Wednesday 6 July 2011 15.01 EDT First published on Wednesday 6 July 2011 15.01 EDT Share on Messenger Close The ritual of hurling people into space is ingrained in the fabric of Florida's space coast , a 40-mile strip of eastern shoreline that runs from Titusville through Cape Canaveral to Palm Bay in the south. In 1961, crowds gathered here to see Alan Shepard blast off aboard a Mercury-Redstone rocket and become the first US citizen in space. The Apollo programme to land men on the moon came swiftly after. From here, astronauts flew to the moon, trundled around in buggies, struck a few golf balls and collected lumps of moon rock before heading home.

But this area, which lives in the shadow of the space programme, is facing the end of an era. For the past 30 years, Kennedy Space Centre has been home to the space shuttle, Nasa's great hope for making space travel cheap and commonplace. Tomorrow, one million spectators are expected to gather at vantage points along the coast to witness the launch of Atlantis, the 135th shuttle mission, and the last flight of the fleet. When Atlantis returns in 12 days time it will be dismantled and dispatched to a museum . The space shuttle fell famously short of expectations. Estimates put the cost of each launch at an exorbitant $1.5bn. Preparation for a mission took months if not years. And flights hardly became routine. Rather than journeying into space once a week – as designers had hoped – Nasa managed only a handful of launches a year. And then there is the human cost. In 1986, the shuttle Challenger was destroyed on takeoff when a rocket booster exploded, killing its crew of seven. Nasa took great efforts to fix the problem and looked hard at the management failures that led to the accident.

Then, in 2003, another shuttle was lost high up in the atmosphere, this time when super-hot plasma tore into the wing of Columbia after it sustained damage from foam falling off the main fuel tank during takeoff. Another seven lives lost. Michael Griffin, the former chief administrator at the US space agency, who bemoaned Nasa's ambitions in space as doing no more than endlessly circling the Earth, called the shuttle "inherently flawed". The end of the shuttle era brings fresh focus on the shortcomings and mismanagement of the Nasa programme, but amid the criticism, it is worth recalling the achievements too. The shuttle launched and repaired – several times – the Hubble space telescope, which continues to capture spectacular images of the cosmos. The shuttle carried the Chandra x-ray observatory into orbit. And, of course, it was the workhorse behind the $100bn International Space Station , a 500-tonne orbiting outpost as roomy as a five-bedroom house. Thanks to the shuttle, astronauts know how to build spacecraft in space, knowledge that will underpin any future attempt to fly humans to other planets. For those who flew on the shuttle, it was the experience of a lifetime.

No other rocket has carried astronauts into space and flown them back down through the red hot glow of the heated atmosphere to touch down like a glider on a runway. Here, two veterans describe the experience. Scott Altman flew four missions, including two to repair the Hubble telescope. Piers Sellers, from Crowborough, Sussex, flew three shuttle missions, and clocked up nearly five million miles aboard Atlantis last year. Preparing for takeoff Scott Altman You wake up around five hours prior to going out to the vehicle. It reminds me of Christmas morning, the level of excitement as you get up and have that last meal, get into your orange launch-and-entry suits in the white room and then get on the bus that takes you out to the pad. There's a background level of anticipation, looking forward to the event. You get out to the pad about three hours prior to the launch. The commander gets in first and is strapped in. The vehicle is on the pad pointed upwards, so everything has been tilted 90 degrees and it is like getting into a different vehicle than the one you trained in. It takes a little effort to get all strapped in, but finally I'm in and the rest of the crew comes in after me.

Everything starts to look like the simulators we've spent thousands of hours in. The rhythm feels like the simulators. You forget this is actually launch day and not just another simulation. But as the clock keeps ticking, you go through your checklist, you get down to the point when everything's sealed up and you start thinking this is a little different. Your heart is beating a little quicker. Piers Sellers A few minutes before launch, the whole shuttle vibrates as it cranks its engines to one side and the other, and backwards. There's a real feeling that the machine is awakening. The seconds go by and everyone is watching. At exactly 10 seconds before launch, all the navigation instruments go from a rest position to active, you can see that navigation is tracking, that it knows where it wants to take the shuttle. A few seconds after that, the main engines light. You can't really feel or hear much at that point.

You see the power come up on the indicators in the cockpit, you see the thrust go up from zero to 100% on three engines and then you feel the whole stack sway forwards towards your feet, and that is because the thrust of the engines is so great that it bends the shuttle and stack on its hold-down bolts, and pushes it to one side. They call that the twang. The twang goes all the way, about 4ft, and then the whole stack bounces back. And at exactly the right moment, zero, the solid rocket boosters light and the hold-down bolts explode and off you go. It feels as if someone lit a bomb underneath your back. You just go flying up into the air, like a gigantic hand pushing you up into the sky. You see the launch tower fall by down one side and you are headed upwards into the sky. There's a tremendous feeling of power, there's a lot of vibration, noise, people yelling over the radio, and you get the feeling there's this 2,500-tonne ship going straight up.

You are banging around in your seat, while everything is moving around, swaying around in the cockpit, trying to look at the instruments, trying to concentrate, but tremendously excited. SA The vehicle is shaking incredibly. You can get to switches – you have to take your time and focus on what you're doing and make sure you get to the right switch. As the commander I can see out of my forward window. Mostly you are facing up, so it's nothing but blue sky. On my third mission, though, there was a thin cloud deck and I looked up out of that window and I saw it coming and all of the sudden it was like "whoooosh!" right through it. Astronaut Mark Lee floats outside Discovery, 149 miles above the Earth, 1994. Photograph: Nasa PS After about 45 seconds, you get the call that the main engines are going to throttle down so that the shuttle can ease through the transonic region , and you watch the thrust fall down on the instruments and then you are aware that you are going supersonic about one minute after you launch, but you are going supersonic straight up, not along, straight up, which is kind of incredible.

At some point you see the sky go from blue very quickly to black as you punch out of the atmosphere. You keep hammering along like this at first stage for the first two minutes. There's a lot of vibration, a lot of rattling and rolling in the cockpit, until you get to about two minutes and then the solid rocket boosters fall off, each side of the shuttle, and things smooth right out. You have to make an effort to pull the air into your lungs. Expulsion is not a problem at all, your chest just collapses again. SA At main engine cut-off, all three shuttle engines shut off and "bang!", just like that you're floating. The transition is instantaneous and you feel your body going forwards as if it's a compressed spring and anything that's not tied down goes floating by. You can't see the ground too easily until a point when the whole stack rolls upright and you go from inverted over the Earth to upright, and as you sweep through that roll, you can look out of the window and see the Earth opening up underneath you. I'll never forget that sight on my very first flight when we rolled in the direction and I was looking out of that window.

I saw the curvature of the Earth, and the ocean there, the thin blue line at the horizon that is the atmosphere, and it was just an incredible sight. And then it was: "OK, come back in on the dials, let's get back to work." Floating in orbit PS We have a plan to get us through the first day in orbit. You get out of your suit, hang it up, then convert the shuttle from being a rocket into being a spacecraft. You're putting out computers, moving bags around, stuff like that, and that takes longer than you'd think, about four or five hours. The next day you catch up with the Space Station and the day after that you dock. And that's exciting. The Space Station goes from being a very distant star when you can first see it to a brighter and brighter light, and then eventually this gigantic silver structure that's hanging there in the black sky above you. You sneak up below it and at the appropriate moment, the shuttle does a pitch around manoeuvre, where in effect it does a loop 600ft below the station, so the guys on the station can photograph the shuttle and see if there's been any damage and send all that digital data back to the ground.

You do that and then you come up level with the station and slowly ease yourself in towards it, a bit like a very delicate parking job. PS The extraordinary thing, particularly when you're spacewalking, is that sometimes it looks like you'd expect it to look, which is you're flying over a huge rotating ball with a black sky and it's breathtakingly beautiful. That's how you'd expect it to be, only better. But sometimes your perceptions can play some tricks on you. Often you feel that the world is like a big wall on one side of you and you are flying horizontally around it. At other times it's like a big ball above you and you're going underneath it. So your orientation changes a little bit but it sinks in that the world is a sphere, and you're going around it, sometimes under it, sideways, or over it. When you look at the world it's incredibly bright. The seas, the oceans, they look like blue neon. It's so bright, it hurts your eyes. You can see everything on the continents, you can see the rivers, the mountains, forests, cities, all sorts of things. You can even see big fields if you look carefully.

SA I joined Nasa just before the 10-year anniversary of the Challenger accident. I really felt that Nasa had done its homework, that we'd learned the lessons from Challenger and that basically it was a management failure: the signs were there but Nasa didn't heed them as well as they could have. Six of the seven astronauts on Columbia [which was destroyed on entry in 2003] were very close friends of mine. Three were my classmates, the other three were in the class right after me. Dave Brown had been my flight surgeon in the navy. It was a shock to me to realise that basically we did almost the same thing again, in that we missed the warning signs: foam falling off the vehicle was a threat and we hadn't learned from that mistake. A long time ago, during the Apollo 1 fire, Frank Borman (a former Apollo commander) said what we had was a failure of imagination, to imagine what could have gone wrong and try to stop it from happening. I think the same thing happened with Columbia. Returning to Earth PS To leave, you undock and fly around the Space Station and that's all very slow and balletic and pretty, but not very dramatic.

You then spend a day coasting around the Earth, packing things up and getting ready to come home. On entry day you get up early and it's a sprint. You have to pack everything away, secure everything and get in your pressure suit. The whole business really starts at the de-orbit burn. You turn the shuttle so the tail is pointing into the wind, if you like, let rip with the engines for a long burn to kick the shuttle out of orbit, then flip the shuttle over so its nose is pointing the right way for hitting the atmosphere. Very quickly after that you start descending into the upper layers of the atmosphere. You don't see much to start with, but after a while you get this beautiful cherry-red glow all round the shuttle and you can see it snapping over the tail. It kind of pulses, but over the forward cockpit windows it's just a beautiful cherry red that you can see through. In daylight you can see through this red haze and see the world. We actually saw a sunrise come up through the red glow of the entry.

SA From the moment you do your final de-orbit burn, when you're about 12,000 miles from your landing point, one thing you know for certain is that in about an hour the shuttle is going to hit the surface of the Earth. The challenge to you, as commander and pilot, is to make sure where you hit the Earth has a runway underneath it. You really don't have any sense of gravity yet, but as you go through the entry a little bit, you'll go to hang a card on a Velcro spot or something and let go of it and notice it slowly floats to the floor, and you're like, "Wow, look at that!" And you do it again: "Hey, gravity, we haven't seen that in two weeks!" It's amazing. Your perspective has changed. You don't expect things to fall any more and when they start doing so, it's almost like a new experience. You're coming through the atmosphere and if it's night where you are, you look out of the overhead window and you start seeing this little green glow, which is the atmosphere heating up by the friction of the shuttle smashing through it.

As you go further and lower, you start to notice it going a little bit darker, into the yellows. On my second entry, I was looking out at that and I started to see it get a little bit darker, so I floated up in my seat a little bit and looked towards the nose and I could see it transitioning from yellow to kind of pink and I floated up a little higher and it was starting to go red, and it was like – "I don't know if I want to look any more" – so I floated back down in my seat because it just looked too hot, too brutal out there. PS The shuttle does a couple of big S-turns to slow down over the Pacific ocean. In our case, we came zipping across Panama and Cuba and up towards Florida very fast, in just a few minutes. You pop out of the sky at Mach five [3,840mph], and everyone below you hears a double bang as you go transonic. Then you do this great sort of spiral dive over Florida and come down shooting towards the runway, nose pointed almost at the dirt. At the last minute, the commander pulls the nose up and squeaks it on to the runway.

You feel the main wheels go down, then the nose wheel, they deploy the chute to slow you down, and then you gradually roll to a stop. At that point there are a lot of smiles. People are happy. Hopefully the mission went well, nobody got hurt, all the tasks got accomplished, and you did it all without disgracing yourself or your friends. I've flown on two shuttles and they both felt a little bit different. They are real ships with their individual characters and their own nicks and bumps. You look at the shuttle, it's not as if it's this pristine, shining, gleaming piece of metallic technology – it looks like a ship, it's got dents and burns and inside multiple crews have whacked the paintwork and you can see scratches and things. They are ships that have been operated and lived in and done these incredible voyages all with their individual characters. I am personally very fond of the shuttle. When they wind up in museums I'll go and see them and I'll be happy to see them like old friends. The future of space PS You will hear that the shuttle cost a lot of money, and it's very complicated and has some embedded risks in its design and all of that is completely true.

But if you take the long view, you have to look at what was achieved with the shuttle. You got a beautiful space station, an international space station, a complete 500-tonne orbiting laboratory run by 16 countries that I think is going to deliver some real home runs over the next 10 to 15 years. You got Hubble, not only launched but repaired and serviced four times, Chandra, and a whole lot of other instruments of science. But I think the most important thing that came out of it was we took the business of working and assembling things in space to a high level of artistry. If we go somewhere else, such as Mars, we are going to have to assemble our spaceships in orbit. We know how to do that now. Having put the Space Station together, we know how to do work in orbit, to assemble big structures and complicated pieces of engineering. We've taken a big leap forward in our technology and our operations. SA Nasa is re-focusing, re-grouping. I think the whole country needs to decide what they want out of a space programme and where we should go.

I do think that, in the future, the big things we do in space are going to take the cooperation of the whole world. So the International Space Station is a great partnership to start that effort moving forward to put people on Mars and explore the outer planets and to start extending humanity from our foothold here on Earth into the stars. I am hopeful that the spirit of cooperation will be good not just for efforts in space but for humanity in general, as we learn how to work together. I think we have made a transition into a somewhat unusual place for Nasa, that we're not exactly sure what the next vehicle is, what the next step is. But I think in the end human spaceflight is something that's important to people in general and to humanity as a whole, for looking out and pushing ourselves to ask the next questions and figure out what's out there. Nasa employees weep at Kennedy Space Centre as half a century of American dominance in space comes to a close Published: 21 Jul 2011 Nasa employees turn out in darkness to welcome the space shuttle home after 126 million miles travelled Published: 21 Jul 2011

Question: What was the name of the Space Shuttle that flew the last US mission to the International Space Station in July 2011?
Answer: Atlantis