Atlantis Safely Lands Its Final Flight

At 8:48 am EDT (1248 GMT) today, May 26, the space shuttle Atlantis and its six-astronaut crew landed safely on Runway 33 at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Though initially there were some concerns that the weather would not allow for the spacecraft to perform its deorbit and atmospheric reentry maneuvers, NASA mission controllers eventually gave the “go-ahead” to the crew. The flawless touchdown of Atlantis represents its last planned landing, as the freshly-concluded STS-132 mission is scheduled to be the shuttle's last. The orbiter is to be permanently retired later this year.

After 25 years of active service and 32 flown missions, NASA officials now plan to mark Atlantis as the first retired spacecraft from the space agency's fleet of three. Discovery has one final planned flight in September, while Endeavor is due to fly its last mission in November. The latter will carry the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) to the International Space Station (ISS). The instrument is the largest scientific experiment ever flown to space, and its role is to help detect the elusive dark matter. Astrophysicists believe this stuff makes up for most of the mass in the Universe.

Safely returning home aboard Atlantis are Commander Kenneth Ham, pilot Dominic Antonelli and mission specialists Garrett Reisman, Michael Good, Stephen Bowen and Piers Sellers. The crew spent 12 days in space, of which more than seven affixed to the ISS. During three extra-vehicular activities (EVA), spacewalkers swapped solar array batteries, replaced spare parts, installed cooling hoses, and attached a new Russian-built room to the Zarya module. The Rassvet (Dawn in Russian) chamber is to be used as a docking port, cargo storage compartment, as well as for conducting scientific experiments, Space reports.

Throughout its career, Atlantis led a full life, visiting numerous destinations in space. It docked to the Russian Mir space station and the ISS, but it also visited the Hubble Space Telescope in repair missions. The latest such flight was in May 2009, when astronauts managed to fully refurbish the incredible observatory. At the time, the shuttle Endeavor was standing by at the KSC, ready to launch in the event something went amiss on Atlantis. Now, during Endeavor's November launch, the roles will be reversed, with Atlantis standing by to assist. After the ISS-bound orbiter returns, both spacecrafts will be retired together, according to NASA's current plans.