Space shuttle Atlantis aims for morning touchdown in Fla. to end quarter-century flying career

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Space shuttle Atlantis aims for morning touchdown

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Space shuttle Atlantis zoomed toward its final touchdown Wednesday to cap a 25-year flying career, bringing back six astronauts who boosted the International Space Station’s size and power.

Storms that had threatened to come too close to the landing site dissipated and remained at a safe distance.

“Looks like you have a perfect day,” Mission Control told commander Kenneth Ham. Cheers erupted in the cockpit when Mission Control radioed up the “go” to come home.

Ham and his crew fired the braking rockets an hour before the scheduled 8:48 a.m. touchdown and put Atlantis on a downward course.

Tens of thousands jammed the space center to witness Atlantis’ launch on May 14. The landing attracted far fewer people. But coming in from Houston were the lead flight directors for the space station construction mission — NASA’s third-to-last shuttle journey.

Atlantis logged its 120-millionth mile shortly after midnight, accumulated over 32 flights.

Only two shuttle missions remain, by NASA’s two other spaceships. NASA is pushing for one more flight for Atlantis, which would need White House approval.

The astronauts accomplished everything they set out to do on the 12-day flight and did it with humor. When Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert called to chat Tuesday, the one-liners zipped back and forth.

“We’ve got a new antenna on the space station, a new six-pack of batteries, a new module docked to the station, and generally have defeated the forces of evil, so we’re very happy about how things have gone,” said spaceman Garrett Reisman.

Ham and his crew turned serious, though, when reflecting on Atlantis’ quarter-century of service and the impending end of the space shuttle program.

Atlantis — the fourth in NASA’s shuttle series — is ending its run after having spent an accumulated 294 days in orbit and circled Earth 4,648 times. It’s carried 189 astronauts and visited the International Space Station 11 times. It also flew seven times to Russia’s old Mir station and once to the Hubble Space Telescope.

The shuttle added another 4.8 million miles this time around, for a grand total of 120.65 million miles over its lifetime.

Once Atlantis is back in its hangar, it will be prepped for a potential rescue mission for what’s currently slated to be the final shuttle flight by Endeavour. Endeavour’s trip is targeted for November, but NASA managers will reassess the date in another week or two.

The only other flight on the books is a supply run to the space station by Discovery in September. That date also is being evaluated.

Both of those missions have payload issues that are threatening to cause delays.

NASA would like to fly Atlantis again in June 2011, provided no rescue mission is needed for Endeavour’s flight. It would be one last supply run with a four-person crew that could camp out at the space station in the event of serious shuttle damage and return to Earth in Russian Soyuz capsules.

The space station — 98 percent complete now in terms of living space — will lose half of its six-person crew in another week. Three astronauts will return to Kazakhstan aboard a Soyuz on June 2, and their replacements will fly up two weeks after that.

Americans will keep hitching rides on Russian rockets until U.S. private enterprise is able to take over. That’s one of the goals set forth earlier this year by President Barack Obama, who wants astronauts aiming for asteroids and Mars in the next few decades.

Online:

NASA: www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/index.html