Cape Canaveral: The space shuttle Atlantis returned from NASA's final shuttle mission on Thursday, ending a 30-year era that opened the space frontier, exposed its dangers and established a toehold for future endeavors beyond Earth.
NASA workers lined the runway at the Kennedy Space Center before dawn to greet Atlantis and its crew upon their return from a successful 13-day cargo run to the International Space Station and to celebrate the conclusion of the shuttle program after 135 flights.
"I saw grown men and and grown women crying today, tears of joy to be sure," said shuttle launch director Mike Leinbach. "Human emotions came out the runway today. You couldn't suppress them."
Sailing through an unusually clear and moonlit night, Atlantis commander Chris Ferguson gently steered the 100-tonne spaceship high overhead, then nose-dived toward the swamp-surrounded landing strip a few miles from where Atlantis will go on display as a museum piece....
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11:58 PM, Jul 21, 2011
Cape Canaveral: The shuttle Atlantis astronauts fired their spaceship's braking rockets to leave orbit on Thursday, aiming to conclude the final US space shuttle mission with a predawn landing at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The shuttle was targeted to land at its home base at 0957 GMT. Atlantis' return from the 135th shuttle mission caps a 30-year program that made spaceflight appear routine, despite two fatal accidents that...
02:38 PM, Jul 21, 2011
Cape Canaveral: Countdown clocks at the Kennedy Space Center began ticking on Tuesday toward the final flight in the 30-year-old US space shuttle program, a cargo run to the International Space Station. Liftoff of shuttle Atlantis carrying astronauts is set for 11:26 am EDT (1526 GMT) on Friday, though meteorologists are concerned about the weather. An approaching front is expected to cloud central Florida's skies beginning on Thursday, stirring up...
01:31 AM, Jul 06, 2011
Cape Canaveral: The space shuttle Endeavour landed smoothly at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday, completing the second-to-last mission of the US space shuttle program. Endeavour, which delivered a pioneering physics experiment to the International Space Station, touched down on the runway at 2:35 am EDT (0635 GMT). It is the second of US space agency NASA's three spaceships being retired this year. Sister ship Atlantis is scheduled...
01:23 PM, Jun 01, 2011
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