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 in Florida, its wheels touching the runway just before local sunrise.
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.
Touch-down marks a moment of high emotion for the local region – not least because it will trigger a big lay-off of contractor staff. Some 3,000 people involved in shuttle operations will lose their jobs within days.
The orbiter programme itself 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 itself 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. (BBC)
