US space shuttle Atlantis arrived at the International Space Station yesterday to deliver supplies to the orbiting outpost on the final flight of the US shuttle programme.
Comdr Chris Ferguson gently eased Atlantis into its parking slip on the station’s Harmony node at 11.07am as the spacecraft soared 370km (230 miles) over the Pacific. “Welcome to the International Space Station for the last time,” station flight engineer Ron Garan radioed to the crew.
After a 30-year history that has cost nearly $200 billion and claimed the lives of 14 astronauts, the shuttles are being retired to make way for a new generation of spacecraft that President Barack Obama says will put US astronauts on an asteroid and on to Mars.
The docking capped a two-day journey that began with an emotional send-off from the Kennedy Space Centre, where about one million spectators gathered on Friday to watch the shuttle thunder into the sky for the programme’s 135th and final flight.
Thousands of pictures will be sent to ground control teams to analyse for signs of damage to Atlantis’s heat shield. Seven astronauts died when Columbia broke apart as it attempted to return to Earth with a damaged heat shield.
Atlantis carries more than five tonnes of food, clothing, spare parts, science equipment and other supplies for the station.
Cargo runs to the space station are being turned over to businesses – Space Exploration Technologies and Orbital Sciences Corp. Both firms plan to begin deliveries for Nasa next year.
The shuttle’s retirement will leave the US without the means to fly people into space. Nasa will pay Russia to ferry astronauts to the station until US commercial companies are ready to provide the service.
The US is investing $269 million in space taxi development and Nasa hopes to resume flying astronauts from the US by 2015.