After 30 years of space travel, Nasa’s shuttle programme came to a end when the space shuttle Atlantis made its final landing on planet Earth. Atlantis touched down at Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 5.57am local time (10.57am BST) watched by several hundred spectators near the runway and will now go on display at the Kennedy Space Center as a museum piece.
See pictures of the final Atlantis landing below:
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Atlantis departed the International Space Station on Tuesday, after restocking it with a year’s worth of supplies. One of the major highlights of its last journey, noted on Wednesday, was the construction of the station, a nearly one million-pound science outpost that took 12.5 years and 37 shuttle flights to build.
Nasa is now working with private companies that are eager to take over cargo runs and astronaut flights to the space station. The first supply trip is expected to take place by the end of 2011 with the long-term destination being outer-space although that would take a minimum of 3 to 5 years to come to fruition. Other long-term destinations include sending astronauts to an asteroid by 2025 and to Mars the following decade.
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Nawaz
July 22, 2011 at 2:56 pm
It is beautiful and attractive scene of landing of space shuttle.
jorge
July 25, 2011 at 5:41 am
that shuttle would become a great reminder of that success.. now they are planning to send astronauts to an asteroid.. wow
reeha
July 26, 2011 at 12:17 pm
Now we only see the previous photos because Nasa declares not to go above again . that is a good decision because a tonnage of energy is exhausted with one shuttle.
LST
July 28, 2011 at 9:05 am
Nice pics man I really like such an interesting blog really appreciating
Gary - cheap mortgages
August 12, 2011 at 8:28 pm
This isn’t the end of space-travel – it’s just the beginning.
Sandra
September 4, 2011 at 3:44 pm
It is a great historical moment.
But sad in another way. Probably a step down from space exploration. But the American government needs to spend it’s money elsewhere.
The private companies are at the moment mainly the Russian government. They sell seats to the Americans for a big bag of money.
Lucian
July 4, 2012 at 5:54 pm
Somehow, the photos disappeared from this page :(. Can you please check and fix them? Thanks.