Space shuttle Atlantis touched down safely at its Florida home port today, wrapping up an 11-day mission to deliver cargo to the International Space Station, one of the final supply runs before the fleet is retired next year.
The shuttle landed at the Kennedy Space Center at 9.44am EST (1444 GMT), ending Nasa's fifth and final flight of the year and the 129th mission in shuttle program history.
Just five shuttle missions remain to complete the $100 billion orbital outpost, a project of 16 nations that has been under construction 220 miles (355km) above Earth for 11 years.
"We're entering the golden era of the International Space Station program," station crew member Bob Thirsk, with the Canadian Space Agency, said during an inflight news conference this week.
Nasa is building capsule-type spaceships to replace the shuttles, which are being retired due to safety concerns and high operating costs.
The new ships also will enable Nasa to fly astronauts to the moon and other destinations in the solar system, in addition to the station. They will not be ready until 2015 at the earliest, however.
Until then, Russian, European and Japanese cargo ships will take over the job of flying food, fuel and supplies to the outpost, though none can handle the bulky station spare parts that fit in the shuttle cargo bay.
Nasa also is hoping to turn over cargo deliveries and possibly crew transport to commercial US companies.
Joining the six Atlantis astronauts for the ride back to Earth was space station flight engineer Nicole Stott, who has been aboard the outpost for three months.
The Russian Soyuz capsule now becomes the space station's exclusive taxi, a service that costs the United States about $50 million a seat.
Reuters