Shuttle heads back to Earth for last time a day

Cape Canaveral, Florida - The shuttle Atlantis astronauts fired their spaceship,s braking rockets to leave orbit on Thursday, aiming to conclude the final u,s, space shuttle mission with a predawn 
Landing at the Kennedy space center in Florida. 


The shuttle was targeted to land at its home base at 5:57a.m. EDT(0957 GMT).
Atlantis return from the 135th shuttle mission caps a 30-year program that made spaceflight Appear routine, despite two fatal accidents that killed 14 astronauts and destroyed two of NASA's
    Five Spaceships.


The last accident investigation board recommended the shuttles be recommended the shuttles 
Be retired after construction was finished after construction was finished on the space station,
A $100 billion project of 16 nations.That milestone was reached that year.


Details of a follow-on program are still pending, but the overall objective is to build  new 
  Spaceships that can travel beyond the station's 250-miles (400-km) orbit and send astronauts 
 To the moon,
 Asteroids and other destinations in deep space.
 The shuttles retirement opens the door for a new commercial space transportation industry ,
 With NASA relying on U.S. firms to deliver cargo to the station starting next year and to
 Fly its astronauts there by about 2015.


Until space taxis are available, Russia will take on the job of flying crews to the station, at a cost 
   Of more then $50 million per person.
The primary goal of Atlantis flight was to deliver a year's worth of supplies to the station in case
       NASA's newly hired cargo suppliers, Space Exploration Technologies and orbital  
 Sciences Corp, encounter delays preparing their new vehicles for flight.


The final shuttle crew included just four astronauts-----
   Commander Chris Ferguson, Pilot Doug Hurley, Flight engineer Rex Waldheim and mission    

 Specialist sandy Ma gnus >>>rather then the typical six or seven astronauts, a precaution in  
  Case Atlantis was too damaged to safely Attempt the return to Earth.


  NASA added a rescue plan after the 2003 Columbia accident. 
Atlantis and sister ships Discovery and Endeavor have been promised to museums .
 With the shuttle program's end, more then 3,000 contractors in Florida, Texas and 
Alabama will be out of a job, a bittersweet ending to a program that leaves the space 
 Station as its Crowning legacy.
We are know the shuttle is going to retire for a very long time.