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Space shuttle Atlantis makes its final landing
Space shuttle Atlantis has landed back on Earth, bringing to a close America's 30-year orbiter programme.
The vehicle swept into the Kennedy Space Center, its wheels touching the runway just before local sunrise.Nasa's shuttles were instrumental in building the space station, and were used to launch the Hubble telescope.
"The space shuttle changed the way we view the world and it changed the way we view the Universe," said commander Chris Ferguson on landing.
"There's a lot of emotion today but one thing's indisputable: America's not going to stop exploring," he radioed to mission control.
Retirement of Nasa's iconic shuttle fleet was ordered by the US government, in part due to the high cost of maintaining the ships.
The decision leaves the country with no means of putting astronauts in orbit.
The US space agency's intention is to invite the private sector to provide it with space transport services, and a number of commercial ventures already have crew ships in development.
These are unlikely to be ready to fly for at least three or four years, however.
In the interim, Nasa will rely on the Russians to ferry its people to and from the International Space Station (ISS).
Despite the dark skies over Florida's Space Coast, large crowds came out to try to glimpse Atlantis as it made its historic return from orbit. Even in Texas, where mission control is sited, people mingled outside the gates of the Johnson Space Center.
The de-orbit track brought Atlantis across central Florida and the Titusville-Mims area before a hard bank to the left put the vehicle on a line to Runway 15 at Kennedy.
Analysis: A huge cheer went up across the Kennedy Space Centre as the space shuttle Atlantis touched down for the final time just before dawn.
Many here believe this is the end of an era and the end, for now, of America's dominance in space.
It is a bitter-sweet moment. Nasa plans to celebrate the shuttle programme's countless milestones over the next few days but on Friday thousands of workers will lose their jobs.
For now, though, this is a chance for everyone involved in the 30-year programme to reflect on what the world's first re-usable spacecraft has achieved.
Over the decades, the orbiters deployed almost 200 satellites, carried out important scientific research and built the International Space Station.
A chapter in human space exploration has now closed for good, but the space shuttles' place in history is assured.
Many here believe this is the end of an era and the end, for now, of America's dominance in space.
It is a bitter-sweet moment. Nasa plans to celebrate the shuttle programme's countless milestones over the next few days but on Friday thousands of workers will lose their jobs.
For now, though, this is a chance for everyone involved in the 30-year programme to reflect on what the world's first re-usable spacecraft has achieved.
Over the decades, the orbiters deployed almost 200 satellites, carried out important scientific research and built the International Space Station.
A chapter in human space exploration has now closed for good, but the space shuttles' place in history is assured.
Commander Ferguson, a veteran of two previous shuttle missions was at the controls, with his pilot Doug Hurley alongside him. Mission specialists Sandy Magnus and Rex Walheim were sitting directly behind on the flightdeck.
Their ship's rear wheels touched the ground at 0556 local time (0956 GMT; 1056 BST), and the vehicle was stationary under a minute later.
It concluded a 13-day re-supply mission to the ISS.
The return of Atlantis marked a moment of high emotion for the Space Coast - not least because it will trigger a big lay-off of contractor staff. More than 3,000 people involved in shuttle operations will lose their jobs.
The orbiter programme itself does not officially end for a month, but even then it is likely to take a couple of years to close all activities, such as the archiving of decades of shuttle engineering data.
For Atlantis, its retirement will be spent as a static display at the Kennedy visitor complex.
The Discovery and Endeavour shuttles, which made their final flights earlier this year, will go to the Air and Space Museum's Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia and the California Science Center in Los Angeles, respectively.
Nasa hopes to invest money saved from shuttle operations in a new spaceship and rocket that can take humans beyond the ISS to destinations such as the Moon, asteroids and Mars.
The conical ship, known as Orion, has already been defined and is in an advanced stage of development. The rocket, on the other hand, is still an unknown quantity.
The US Congress has told the agency what its minimum capabilities should be. However, the agency is currently struggling to put those specifications into a concept it says can be built to the timeline and budget specified by the politicians.
It promises to detail the rocket's baseline design before the summer is out.
