The space shuttle Atlantis glides to a landing at Kennedy Space Center to complete its final mission in May 2010.
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Image courtesy of NASA/Tony Gray and Tom Farrar.
Final Flight of Space Shuttle Atlantis
The space shuttle Atlantis finished its last flight when it landed on May 26, 2010. NASA is retiring the whole fleet of space shuttle orbiters by the end of 2010. Discovery and Endeavor are the other two working space shuttles.
Atlantis blasted off on its last mission on May 5, 2010. The shuttle carried a new Russian-built research module to the International Space Station (ISS). Astronauts went on three spacewalks during the shuttle's mission.
The first flight of Atlantis was in October 1985. This orbiter has flown 32 missions. Atlantis flew the final mission to the Hubble Space Telescope in May 2009. This shuttle also flew seven missions to the Russian Mir space station and many flights to the ISS. Atlantis also launched the Magellan and Galileo space probes in 1989.
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