Melted aluminum plating on Atlantis 's right wing underside ( STS-27) Atlantis docked to the International Space Station during STS-132 missionĭuring the launch of STS-27 in 1988, a piece of insulation shed from the right solid rocket booster struck the underside of the vehicle, severely damaging over 700 tiles and removing one tile altogether. With STS-30 Atlantis became the first Space Shuttle to launch an interplanetary probe. Two of these, both flown in 1989, deployed the planetary probes Magellan to Venus (on STS-30) and Galileo to Jupiter (on STS-34). Atlantis was then used for ten flights from 1988 to 1992. Among the five Space Shuttles flown into space, Atlantis conducted a subsequent mission in the shortest time after the previous mission (turnaround time) when it launched in November 1985 on STS-61-B, only 50 days after its previous mission, STS-51-J in October 1985. It flew one other mission, STS-61-B (the second shuttle night launch) before the Challenger disaster temporarily grounded the shuttle fleet in 1986. This was the second shuttle mission that was a dedicated Department of Defense mission. Space Shuttle Atlantis lifted off on its maiden voyage STS-51-J on October 3, 1985. When it rolled out of the Palmdale assembly plant, weighing 68,635 kg (151,314 lb), Atlantis was nearly 3.5 short tons (3.2 t) lighter than Columbia. Atlantis was completed in about half the time it took to build Space Shuttle Columbia.Specifications Space Shuttle Atlantis as it transits the Sun Overland transport from Palmdale to Edwards Air Force Base Wings arrive at Palmdale, California, from Grumman Start structural assembly of aft-fuselage Construction milestones DateĬontract Award to Rockwell International's Space Transportation Systems Division Atlantis landed for the final time at the Kennedy Space Center on July 21, 2011.īy the end of its final mission, Atlantis had orbited the Earth a total of 4,848 times, traveling nearly 126,000,000 mi (203,000,000 km), which is more than 525 times the distance from the Earth to the Moon.Ītlantis is named after RV Atlantis, a two-masted sailing ship that operated as the primary research vessel for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution from 1930 to 1966. STS-135 took advantage of the processing for the STS-335 Launch on Need mission that would have been necessary if STS-134's crew became stranded in orbit. STS-134 by Endeavour was expected to be the final flight before STS-135 was authorized in October 2010. Its maiden flight was STS-51-J made from October 3 to 7, 1985.Ītlantis embarked on its 33rd and final mission, also the final mission of a space shuttle, STS-135, on July 8, 2011. Atlantis is also the fourth operational and the second-to-last Space Shuttle built. Atlantis was manufactured by the Rockwell International company in Southern California and was delivered to the Kennedy Space Center in Eastern Florida in April 1985. Space Shuttle Atlantis (Orbiter Vehicle designation: OV‑104) is a retired Space Shuttle orbiter vehicle which belongs to NASA, the spaceflight and space exploration agency of the United States.
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