The astronauts will spend Saturday inspecting the heat shield and are to dock at the space station on Sunday. Although the spacecraft was out of sight, the still-rising plume cast a shadow onto the clouds to mark its trajectory to space, and the Atlantis reached orbit in eight and a half minutes. Walheim, a retired Air Force colonel.Īfter a minute, the shuttle, leaving behind a thick plume of smoke, disappeared into the clouds. two and a half minutes later than scheduled - the engines of the Atlantis ignited to propel it to orbit with its crew of four: Capt. But by looking at video images, mission controllers confirmed that the arm had indeed fully retracted.Īt 11:29 a.m. Endeavours final mission, in May 2011, delivered spare parts to the International Space Station, including parts for the Dextre arm it had installed many. An electronic signal indicated that the “beanie cap” that vents oxygen gas from the external fuel tank had failed to retract. We’re not ending the journey today, Mike, we’re completing a chapter in a journey that will never end.”Īt 31 seconds before the scheduled liftoff, the countdown clock halted. STS-113 was a Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS) flown by Space Shuttle Endeavour.During the 14-day mission in late 2002, Endeavour and its crew extended the ISS backbone with the P1 truss and exchanged the Expedition 5 and Expedition 6 crews aboard the station. Noting the end of the shuttle era, he added: “The shuttle is always going to be a reflection of what a great nation can do when it dares to be bold and commits to follow through. Crippen, a retired Navy captain who was the pilot of the first shuttle flight, came to watch the last one.
Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and two former NASA administrators, Daniel Goldin and Michael Griffin.Īnd Robert L. So did 14 members of Congress John Holdren, the president’s science adviser Eric Holder, the United States attorney general Adm. The program, which began in 1981, comes to an end when the Atlantis’ wheels roll to a stop on the runway in two weeks.Īccording to NASA, the luminaries who came included Joe Gibbs, the former Washington Redskins football coach Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Computer and the singer Jimmy Buffett. For the last time, the engines of a space shuttle roared, the ground rumbled, and the shuttle Atlantis rose off the launching pad and disappeared into the clouds.īy dawn Friday, cars and Winnebagos lined the sides of roadways with prime views as hundreds of thousands of people came to watch the 135th flight in the space shuttle program.
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