Pictures: Shuttle Atlantis blasts into history
Jul 9, 2011
The space shuttle Atlantis lifts off July 8, 2011 at Kennedy Space Center in Florida for the final flight of the shuttle program.
PHOTO: AFP
CAPE CANAVERAL (Florida) - ATLANTIS and four astronauts thundered into orbit on Friday on Nasa's last space shuttle voyage, writing the final chapter in a 30-year story of dazzling triumphs, shattering tragedy and, ultimately, unfulfilled expectations.
After some last-minute suspense over the weather and a piece of launch-pad equipment, Atlantis and its four astronauts blasted off practically on schedule at 11.29am (11.29pm Singapore time, 1529 GMT), pierced a shroud of clouds and settled flawlessly into orbit.
The launch was viewed by a crowd estimated at close to one million, the size of the throng that watched the launch of the Apollo 11 lunar-landing mission in 1969. It was the 135th shuttle flight since the inaugural mission in 1981.
'Let's light this fire one more time, Mike, and witness this great nation at its best,' Atlantis commander Christopher Ferguson told launch director Mike Leinbach just before lift-off. Atlantis' crew will dock with the International Space Station on Sunday, deliver a year's worth of critical supplies to the orbiting outpost, and bring the trash home. The shuttle is scheduled to land back on Earth on July 20 after 12 days in orbit, though the flight is likely to be extended to a 13th day.
After Atlantis' return, it will be lights out for the shuttle programme. Thousands of workers will be laid off within days. The spaceship will become a museum piece like the two other surviving shuttles, Discovery and Endeavour.
And Nasa will leave the business of building and flying rockets to private companies while it turns its attention to sending humans to an asteroid by about 2025 and Mars a decade after that. It will be at least three years - possibly five or more - before astronauts are launched again from US soil.
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Compiled By Priscilla Goi
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