Crowd Greets Space Shuttle Atlantis

Atlantis' final return from space at 5:57 a.m. EDT secured the space shuttle fleet's place in history and brought a close to the America's Space Shuttle Program.
Atlantis' final return from space at 5:57 a.m. EDT secured the space shuttle fleet's place in history and brought a close to the America's Space Shuttle Program. (Image credit: NASA/Frankie Martin)

Space shuttle Atlantis is slowly towed from the Shuttle Landing Facility to an orbiter processing facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida for the last time. Atlantis' final return from space at 5:57 a.m. EDT secured the space shuttle fleet's place in history and brought a close to the America's Space Shuttle Program. There to welcome Atlantis home and an employee appreciation event are the thousands of workers who have processed, launched and landed the shuttles for more than three decades. STS-135 delivered spare parts, equipment and supplies to the International Space Station. STS-135 was the 33rd and final flight for Atlantis, which has spent 307 days in space, orbited Earth 4,848 times and traveled 125,935,769 miles.

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