Ten years ago the end of the shuttle era

Ten years ago he was on stage sunset transportation service, a space exploration program that opened in 1972 and concluded with the last STS-135 mission.

L ‘July 8, 2011 space shuttle carrier Atlantis Performed a D lift Kennedy Space Center subordinate NASA in Florida, and then landed there 13 days later on runway 15 for the last return of a space shuttle. A crew of 4 astronauts led by Christopher Ferguson has flown supplies and equipment to the International Space Station for 2012, the last supply made by a shuttle.

More than 4,000 kg of supplies have been brought to the International Space Station thanks to Raffaello . unit, one of three multipurpose logistics units, compact hulls built by Thales Alenia Space on behalf ofItalian space agency It was presented to NASA for transportation to and from the International Space Station in the shuttle’s cargo bay. Of the three, Leonardo, Raffaello and Donatello, the first, thanks to a new agreement between NASA and ASI, has been converted into a permanent unit for the International Space Station, Multipurpose permanent unit. Thus Italy is the only European country that has a fixed module and is part of the International Space Station.

With the return of the space shuttle Atlantis, the shuttle’s space exploration career, which began concretely with the first launch on April 12, 1981, of the Columbia carrier STS-1 mission, came to an end. Ten years after the program ended, the Shuttle remains a symbol of human space exploration: the most technologically advanced spacecraft man has ever made. Forward to Fragile: It was a craft for astronauts, a space lab, and a cargo ship for transport outside Earth’s atmosphere. Capable of starting like a rocket and back to landing like an airplane. arc in the future.