Washington, July 21 (ANI): US space shuttle Atlantis has landed safely at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Thursday morning, wrapping up NASA's 135th mission and 30-year space shuttle program.
Shuttle Atlantis and its four-astronaut crew glided home for the final time, ending a 13-day journey of more than five million miles with a landing at 5:57 a.m. EDT.
It was the 25th night landing (19th night and 78th total landings at Kennedy) and the 133rd landing in shuttle history.
"The brave astronauts of STS-135 are emblematic of the shuttle program-skilled professionals from diverse backgrounds who propelled America to continued leadership in space with the shuttle's many successes," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden.
"This final shuttle flight marks the end of an era, but today, we recommit ourselves to continuing human spaceflight and taking the necessary- and difficult - steps to ensure America's leadership in human spaceflight for years to come," he added.
Since STS-1 launched on April 12, 1981, 355 individuals from 16 countries flew 852 times aboard the shuttle. The five shuttles traveled more than 542 million miles and hosted more than 2,000 experiments in the fields of Earth, astronomy, biological and materials sciences. (ANI)
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