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Shuttle Atlantis and seven astronauts landed safely today at Edwards Air Force Base in California, winding up a wildly successful mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope for a fifth and final time.
With veteran mission commander Scott Altman at the controls, Atlantis swooped out of a clear blue California sky, touched down, and then roll to a stop on Runway 22 at the Mojave Desert military base."Houston, Atlantis, wheels stop," Altman said. "Edwards two-two."
"Welcome home Atlantis," NASA astronaut Gregory "Box" Johnson replied from the Mission Control Center at Johnson Space Center in Houston." "Congratulations on a very successful mission, giving Hubble a new set of eyes that will continue to expand our knowledge of the universe."
"Thank you, Houston," Altman said. "It was a thrill from start to finish. We had a great ride. It took a whole team across the country to pull it off. Our hats are off to you all. Thank you very much."
Atlantis touched down at 225 mph with a 15 mph headwind straight down the runway.The landing capped a 5.2-million-mile mission that was launched May 11 and stretched out over the course of the past two weeks.
The astronauts performed five back-to-back spacewalks, outfitting Hubble with two new state-of-the-art science instruments and repairing two others while equipping the flagship observatory to operate at least another five years.
It was NASA's 126th shuttle mission and the 30th for Atlantis. Shuttle orbiters now have landed at Edwards 53 times.
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