After three consecutive days (Friday, Saturday and today - Sunday) of trying to wait for good weather at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, NASA landed the shuttle at 18:39 Israel time
The space shuttle Atlantis, which was scheduled to land on Friday after returning from a successful mission to upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope, landed safely at Edwards Military Airfield in California at 11:39 am EST, 18:39 pm Israel time.
The landing as seen on the TV broadcasts was smooth, and a little towards the end the shuttle even performed a loop in the air to reach Runway No. 22 at Edwards from the right direction, apparently considering the direction of the winds in the area.
NASA prefers to land the shuttles due to economic considerations, the cost of transporting the shuttle on a Boeing 747 aircraft that has been adapted for this is about 2 million dollars. In addition, due to the density of shuttle flights until the end of the shuttle fleet's activity in the 2010 budget year, NASA is also considering a delay of one week to ten days in preparing Atlantis for the next flight. However, there is also a limit to the ability to keep people in space, because the shuttle's water, oxygen and food resources are limited, as well as the energy coming from fuel cells and not from solar collectors as for example in the International Space Station.
Atlantis arrived at the Hubble Space Telescope on May 13, and its crew performed five spacewalks in five consecutive days to repair and upgrade the telescope.
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Can anyone tell how many astronauts are currently on the International Space Station? How many men and how many women? As mentioned, next Thursday there should be a beautiful transition and the sky is expected to be clear...
http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3719877,00.html
They would have had some sort of graduation party and would have announced it loudly on the television broadcast of the landing if this was true.
It is worth looking here as well, although the order has not exactly been kept since the above news was written
Atlantis is not done yet.
She has at least one more flight.
Heroes!
Thank you to the faithful shuttle Atlantis, which has completed its 30th mission and role as an active duty shuttle.
You were good, and good you were.
One is already out. Two more left.
And then the era of Orion spacecraft!!! And the moon!!! And finally, T-W-D-E L-A-L, M=A=D=Y=M !!!!!!!!!!!!!