STS-135 (Atlantis)

Key facts

Mission & specifications

Mission

STS-135 was the end of an era. On 8 July 2011 the Shuttle Atlantis lifted off on the 135th and final flight of the program, watched by an estimated million people who crowded the Florida coast for the last launch. The crew of four — commander Chris Ferguson, pilot Doug Hurley, and mission specialists Sandra Magnus and Rex Walheim — flew a stripped-down mission to deliver a year's worth of supplies and spare parts to the International Space Station, stocking it for the gap everyone knew was coming. After thirty years and 135 missions, Atlantis touched down at Kennedy Space Center before dawn on 21 July 2011, and the Space Shuttle program was over. The Shuttle had launched Hubble and great planetary probes, built two space stations and carried 355 people to orbit, but it left the United States without its own means to launch astronauts. For nearly a decade NASA bought seats on Russian Soyuz rockets to reach the station it had built, until SpaceX's Crew Dragon — piloted on its first crewed flight by Doug Hurley, the man who had flown the last Shuttle — restored American crewed launches in 2020.

1. 2011The final launchLaunch

   Atlantis lifts off on the 135th and last Shuttle flight before a crowd of a million.

2. 2011Last delivery to the ISSArrival

   Atlantis brings a year of supplies to the station, stocking it for the coming gap.

3. 2011The Shuttle era endsMission end

   Atlantis lands before dawn; the US will rely on Soyuz until Crew Dragon flies in 2020.

Images

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