CAPE CANAVERAL – The last US space shuttle left the International Space Station yesterday, ending a 12-year programme to build and service the orbital outpost, the primary legacy of Nasa’s shuttle fleet.
Shuttle Atlantiscommander Capt Chris Ferguson and pilot Doug Hurley gently pulsed their spaceship's steering jets at 7.28am BST yesterday to pull away from the station as they sailed about 400km (250 miles) over the Pacific Ocean.
“Thanks so much for hosting us,” Capt Ferguson radioed to the station crew. “It’s been an absolute pleasure.”
“We’ll miss you guys,” replied station flight engineer Ron Garan. “See you back on Earth.”
Flight controllers at Nasa’s mission control centre sat in reverent silence as they watched the last shuttle pulling away from the station, a $100 billion (€70.61 billion)project of 16 countries that has been assembled and serviced during 37 of Nasa’s 135 shuttle missions.
During their nine-day visit to the station, Capt Ferguson and his crew delivered more than five tonnes of food, clothing, equipment and science experiments, a stockpile intended to bridge a potential year-long gap in US cargo runs to the station.
Atlantis's return to Earth, scheduled for tomorrow, will conclude the 30-year US space shuttle programme, with no replacement US spaceships ready to fly.
Nasa has hired two private firms, Space Exploration Technologies and Orbital Sciences, to resupply the station from next year. Russia, Europe and Japan also fly freighters to the station.
Astronauts will fly aboard Russian Soyuz capsules at a cost of more than $50 million a person, until and unless US companies are able to offer similar transportation services. Several firms, including Boeing, Space Exploration Technologies and Sierra Nevada, are developing passenger spaceships, but none is expected to be ready until about 2015.
The first US space taxi to reach the station will return home with a prize. In an emotional farewell ceremony on Monday, Capt Ferguson presented the station crew with a small American flag that flew during the April 1981 debut flight of sister ship Columbia.
The flag was mounted on the vestibule wall of the compartment that leads to the shuttle’s now-obsolete docking port. It is promised to the first US company that flies astronauts to the station.
Nasa wants to refly the flag aboard the first of its planned spaceships that are designed to carry astronauts to asteroids, the moon and other destinations beyond the station, where the shuttles cannot go.
Atlantisis due back at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 5.57am local time (10.57am BST) tomorrow. – (Reuters)