![]() ![]() After a successful launch and docking with the space station, Atlantis returned to Earth on July 21, 2011. The last mission was initially scheduled for June 28 but was delayed due to bad weather. The mission, STS-135, was the final flight of the Space Shuttle program, and Atlantis carried a crew of four astronauts and a payload of supplies to the International Space Station. The last space shuttle launch occurred on July 8, 2011, when the shuttle Atlantis took off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. They also inspired a new generation of scientists and engineers and demonstrated the power of human ingenuity and cooperation. These spacecraft helped build the International Space Station, repair and upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope, deploy satellites, and conduct scientific research that has brought us many insights about our Solar System and beyond. Endeavour completed 25 missions before being retired in June 2011 (notably marking the first time an African-American woman, Mae C.Atlantis was also the last space shuttle of NASA to launch before the program ended in July 2011. Atlantis flew 33 times, including the last mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope in May 2009.Discovery flew 39 times, including one of the final missions of the space shuttle program in March 2011.Challenger also completed nine missions before it was lost in an accident in January 1986.Columbia completed its maiden voyage in April 1981 and went on to complete 27 missions before being lost in a tragic accident in February 2003.The space agency may well decide that, with newer tech in place and future exploration planned, Hubble's days are coming to an end.Before we talk about the last space shuttle launch, let’s see just how many missions these shuttles flew in the almost 40 years NASA ran the program. Neither that study nor the RFI guarantee that NASA will carry out a Hubble servicing mission, however. Last year, NASA agreed to study the technical feasibility of boosting Hubble with SpaceX's Dragon capsule, and began collecting data. It's not known what other companies, if any, also responded to NASA's RFI, since the space agency promised to keep the information confidential. "Even at 33, Hubble is fully capable of continuing its mission where it is aging is in its orbital stability." "Leveraging Momentus's flight heritage with three orbital service vehicles on-orbit today and Astroscale's expertise in RPOD (rendezvous, proximity operations and docking), we found our product suites to be synergistic in support of a major NASA mission," said John Rood, Momentus CEO. The vehicle would then fire its thrusters and boost Hubble to an orbit 50 kilometers higher, and then clear any litter found in its new environment. Instead of sending astronauts the potential fixers want to launch an orbital service vehicle – built by Momentus and containing components from Astroscale – that can rendezvous with and capture spacecraft. Hubble images photobombed by space hardware on the up.Hubble spots stellar midwife unit pumping out baby planets.Balloon-borne telescope returns first photos in search for dark matter.Star Fomalhaut has dusty little secret – two more debris belts and a potential planetary party.What we've proposed to NASA are options – options that were not available during the five previous crewed servicing missions and that leverage the best of in-space servicing to achieve mission objectives and advance US leadership in space." "The proliferation of in-space servicing and assembly allows us to reimagine how our investments are managed in space it is the foundation on which the new space age is being built.
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