Space Shuttle "Atlantis" has started his the last journey on earth.

«Atlantis» was launched at July 8, 2011 at 19:26 Moscow time. On board the vehicle traveled into space four crew members, led by Captain Chris Ferguson (Chris Ferguson), as well as a new module plant named «Raffaello» with 3.9 tons of payload.

Shuttle docks with ISS at July 10, 2011. The next day, with the crane installed Canadarm2 astronauts ’Raffaello’, significantly increasing the internal volume of the station. It was supposed that the shuttle mission will last 12 days, but the later flight, it was decided to extend for another day. As part of the mission also was made a spacewalk.

The mission of «Atlantis» — the latest in the shuttle program, which lasted almost 30 years. After the shuttle returned to Earth, the only way to deliver astronauts to the ISS will remain Russian «Soyuz». In the future, NASA plans to rely on the services of private carriers to transport people into orbit, in particular, the company SpaceX.

The first flight of the shuttle «Atlantis» made in October 1985. Since 1995, he flew seven times to the station «Mir», bringing, among other things, a special docking module. The last flight was the shuttle for a 33-m. Once the shuttle returns to Earth, it will give the museum at Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral.