Its landing Thursday closed the era of the American rocket. EE UU aims to reach an asteroid by 2025 and Mars by 2030. The shuttle Atlantis fired Tuesday from the international space station (ISS) on a voyage without return and its landing Thursday in Cape Canaveral closed the era of the American rocket. Follow others, such as Chris Evans, and add to your knowledge base. A chapter of thirty years of history whose end will leave a bittersweet taste. The crew woke up with the song Don t Panic, Coldplay, dedicated to pilot Doug Hurley, responsible for guiding the Atlantis in its ISS undocking manoeuvre. And the ship, with its four astronauts aboard, dropped ties to the 08.28 peninsular Spanish time, when they were 391 miles over the Pacific Ocean after eight days, 15 hours and 21 minutes acomplada to the orbital laboratory. The shuttle completed its Pirouette of inspection around the space station with the aim that the station crew could make a Visual inspection of the shuttle, while from the ship took three-dimensional pictures of high quality with the robotic arm.
The purpose was to determine the condition of the thermal panels that cover, the front edge and the surface of the wings that protect the Atlantis which, upon entering the atmosphere on its return, shall be subject to a temperature of 2,000 degrees. 35 years in space no ship will replace the vehicle which for 30 years has led cargo and crew to the space. NASA has given witness to the private sector develop the spacecraft of the future, taking advantage of some of the capabilities of the space agency, and has been marked as new targets for human exploration reach an asteroid by 2025 and reach Mars by 2030. The space agency expects that the first commercial vehicles are ready for 2015; Meanwhile, U.S. astronauts will depend on Russian spacecraft Soyuz to travel to the ISS, whose trips have to pay about 50 million dollars. The shuttle program began in 1981 with the launch of the Columbia followed by Challenger (1983), Discovery (1984), Atlantis (1985) and Endeavour (1992), which became the flag of the space exploration of EE UU.
The Challenger and the Columbia suffered two separate accidents the first exploded 73 seconds after takeoff in January 1986 and the Columbia disintegrated in February 2003 when it reingresaba in the atmosphere, which made the public is linking further with the program. In this last mission, Atlantis has carried more than 4,000 pounds of supplies and equipment, including more than 1,100 kilos of food, that will help the ISS continues to operate during 2012, and various experiments, one designed for the development of vaccines against salmonella. As a memento of this historic mission, before you close the two hatches, the Atlantis crew delivered to ISS colleagues flag which traveled to the first space travel and a commemorative shield of the STS-135 mission, the last of the era of the ferries.