Muslim India headlines
  1. Hope to get justice now: Pathribal victim’s son
  2. 'Murder': SC cites AFSPA, lets Army choose what kind of trial
  3. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad: THE MAN WHO KNEW THE FUTURE
  4. Face covering prohibited in Manglore College
  5. Mosque demolished in Rajasthan, Waqf Board blames Imam
  6. Indian Muslims Still Paying the Price of Partition
  7. ‘Centre ignoring Muslim freedom fighters’ : JUHind
  8. Hyderabad: Hindu Vahine activists triggered riots, Four arrested
  9. Syed Ghulam Akber Engineer is no more
  10. Fact finding Report on Communal Violence in Hyderabad
More Muslim India headlines
World headlines
  1. Iran, big powers agree to keep talking
  2. West to target Iran's nuclear fuel work
  3. Developing Economies Ready to Check Bluff of Developed World
  4. Iran cuts oil to Greek firms over payment problems: Report
  5. US bents: No Iran oil-import sanctions for Japan, 10 EU nations
  6. Israel attack killed over two dozen civilians in Gaza
  7. Netanyahu Says U.S. and Israeli ‘Clocks’ Differ on Iran’s Threat
  8. Obama warns Israel against ‘Loose Talk of War on Iran"
  9. Lady Tonge resigns Lib Dem party whip over Israel remarks
  10. India Asserts Against US Israel Effort to Name Iran in Delhi Terror Attack
More World headlines
Nation headlines
  1. 'Cops fanning Islamophobia'
  2. Fissures within NDA over presidential candidates
  3. Sachar, Mishra, Harsh Mander, yet the Silent Budget of 2012 ...... and our inaction
  4. Seeking legal opinion to free blast accused: UP CM
  5. Saffron extremists hurl meat on temple to trigger riots, four on run, one arrested
  6. Kashmir report rules out ‘simple return to pre-1953 situation'
  7. CCS may be briefed on Kashmir interlocutors report on Thursday
  8. Narendra Modi tops negative votes in global poll
  9. FRANKLY SPEAKING : Arms lobby planted the story
  10. SC spreads its media gaze from court to crime to contempt
More Nation headlines
you are here: Home /
 

Space shuttle Atlantis makes final landing

By Jonathan Amos
Updated Friday, 22 July 2011 12:07:38 - IST (UTC +5:30)


Space shuttle Atlantis has landed back on Earth, bringing to a close America's 30-year orbiter programme.
The vehicle swept into the Kennedy Space Center, its wheels touching the runway just before local sunrise.
Nasa's shuttles were instrumental in building the space station, and were used to maintain the Hubble telescope.
"The space shuttle changed the way we view the world and it changed the way we view the Universe," said commander Chris Ferguson on landing.
"There's a lot of emotion today but one thing's indisputable: America's not going to stop exploring," he radioed to mission control.
Retirement of Nasa's iconic shuttle fleet was ordered by the US government, in part due to the high cost of maintaining the ships.
The decision leaves the country with no means of putting astronauts in orbit.
The US space agency's intention is to invite the private sector to provide it with space transport services, and a number of commercial ventures already have crew ships in development.
These are unlikely to be ready to fly for at least three or four years, however.
In the interim, Nasa will rely on the Russians to ferry its people to and from the International Space Station (ISS).
Despite the dark skies over Florida's Space Coast, large crowds came out to try to glimpse Atlantis as it made its historic return from orbit. Two thousand people were gathered at the landing strip itself, but even in Texas, where mission control is sited, they mingled outside the gates of the Johnson Space Center.
The de-orbit track brought Atlantis across central Florida and the Titusville-Mims area before a hard bank to the left put the vehicle on a line to Runway 15 at Kennedy.
Commander Ferguson, a veteran of two previous shuttle missions was at the controls, with his pilot Doug Hurley alongside him. Mission specialists Sandy Magnus and Rex Walheim were sitting directly behind on the flightdeck.
Their ship's rear wheels touched the ground at 0556 local time (0956 GMT; 1056 BST), and the vehicle was stationary under a minute later.
It concluded a 13-day re-supply mission to the ISS.
The return of Atlantis marked a moment of high emotion for the Space Coast - not least because it will trigger a big lay-off of contractor staff. More than 3,000 people involved in shuttle operations lose their jobs this week.
Mindful of this, Nasa Administrator and former astronaut Charles Bolden was quick to thank programme staff in the speeches that followed the landing.
"I want everybody who was involved in this to feel incredibly proud of what you did and what your role was," he said.
"Like me, [the crew of Atlantis] got to do the flying but we owe an incredible debt of gratitude to the thousands, literally tens of thousands, of folks all around the country who made all this possible."
The orbiter programme does not officially end for a month, but even then it is likely to take a couple of years to close all activities, such as the archiving of decades of shuttle engineering data.
For Atlantis, its retirement will be spent as a static display at the Kennedy visitor complex.
The Discovery and Endeavour shuttles, which made their final flights earlier this year, will go to the Air and Space Museum's Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia and the California Science Center in Los Angeles, respectively.
Nasa hopes to invest money saved from shuttle operations in a new spaceship and rocket that can take humans beyond the ISS to destinations such as the Moon, asteroids and Mars.
The conical ship, known as Orion, has already been defined and is in an advanced stage of development. The rocket, on the other hand, is still an unknown quantity.
The US Congress has told the agency what its minimum capabilities should be. However, the agency is currently struggling to put those specifications into a concept it says can be built to the timeline and budget specified by the politicians.
It promises to detail the rocket's baseline design before the summer is out. (BBC)

Tags: onathan Amos Space, shuttle, Atlantis, final, landing,

  • 'Cops fanning Islamophobia'

    MUMBAI: The last time Muslims and Dalits created a joint political platform in Maharashtra was in the 1980s. Led by former smuggler and don Haji Mastan, the Dalit Muslim Suraksha Mahasangh (DMSM)...

    2012-05-07 17:11:22 |
    0 comments
  • RDX not used in 13/7 blasts, but found in...

    MUMBAI: Chemical analysis of a powder-like substance collected from a Byculla apartment where two suspected Pakistani 13/7 bombers stayed has proved that it is the deadly explosive RDX. The...

    2012-05-03 17:34:23 |
    0 comments
  • Hope to get justice now: Pathribal victim’s son

    Srinagar : For Abdul Rashid Khan, it has been a long wait for justice. Twelve years after his father Juma Khan was allegedly picked from his house, killed in a fake encounter and dubbed a foreign...

    2012-05-03 17:30:23 |
    0 comments
  • 'Murder': SC cites AFSPA, lets Army choose what...

    New Delhi : The Supreme Court gave the Army full “discretion” to choose between a court martial and a criminal trial for seven officers accused of killing five persons in an encounter in...

    2012-05-03 17:27:07 |
    0 comments
  • Syed Ghulam Akber Engineer is no more

    New Delhi. Syed Ghulam Akber, member Markazi Majlis-e-Shoora (Central Advisory Council) and former Secretary Jamaat-e-Islami Hind breathed his last at Care Hospital in Hyderabad at about 1 p.m....

    2012-04-30 20:38:08 |
    0 comments
  • Fact finding Report on Communal Violence in...

    Government responsible for Communal Violence in Hyderabad city RSS outfits Communalizing the situation and polarizing population by developing Communal Sentiments. Introduce and pass Communal...

    2012-04-25 11:01:25 |
    0 comments
  • Muslim Inventions Dazzle California

    CAIRO – Discovering a neglected part in the history of mankind, California students visiting “1001 Inventions” exhibition for Islam’s early contributions to science were introduced to the...

    2011-08-14 17:05:46 |
    0 comments
  • Child Health in India, Smaller States Better...

    New Delhi: The country’s first-ever district-level health survey has placed smaller states, including Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, on the top for most of the health indicators surveyed...

    2011-08-11 15:21:05 |
    0 comments
  • Rural minor girls easy pray of sex trap: Govt...

    NEW DELHI: A study has revealed that rural minor girls are more prone to sex exploitation than urban. The are easy pray for premarital sex. The study claimed that a percentage of women aged 15-24...

    2011-07-24 19:16:39 |
    0 comments
  • Diabetic? Forget pills, pop almonds

    New Delhi: As India grapples with a major public health problem, being home to an estimated 50.8 million diabetic population, the largest in the world, experts say "consuming a few almonds daily can...

    2011-07-24 16:06:22 |
    0 comments
  • Space shuttle Atlantis makes final landing

    Space shuttle Atlantis has landed back on Earth, bringing to a close America's 30-year orbiter programme. The vehicle swept into the Kennedy Space Center, its wheels touching the runway just before...

    2011-07-22 12:47:38 |
    0 comments
  • New nematode discovered by AMU researchers

    Researchers from Aligarh Muslim University in Uttar Pradesh claim to have discovered a soil-inhabiting nematode or roundworm from the grasslands in Assam's Kaziranga National Park. A team at the...

    2011-07-18 11:24:52 |
    0 comments
  • 3 women scientists to monitor GSAT-12 manoeuvres

    CHENNAI: For the first time in the history of the Indian Space Research Organisation, three senior women scientists will monitor and carry out crucial manoeuvres of the communication satellite...

    2011-07-18 10:58:06 |
    0 comments
  • Communication satellite GSAT-12 launched from...

    New Delhi: India on Friday successfully launched its latest communication satellite GSAT-12 onboard a powerful variant of homegrown Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, PSLV-C17, from the spaceport in...

    2011-07-15 20:39:59 |
    0 comments