Space Shuttle Atlantis Returns Home

Posted by ryuzaki0 on Thursday September 21, 2006 @06:23AM from the hooray-for-earth dept.

Digitus1337 writes to mention the news that Space Shuttle Atlantis has returned to Earth after a successful twelve-day mission. Everything involving the mission went smoothly, resulting in high praise from NASA officials. The only drama came from 'mysterious' debris floating alongside the shuttle; this turned out to likely be trash from the cargo bay accidentally released into space. From the article: "The unplanned drama threatened to overshadow what had been a nearly flawless mission filled with strenuous spacewalks and rigorous robotics work that placed the space station back on a path to completion after its long hiatus. The crew of five men and one woman were the longest-trained in NASA history, because they were originally supposed to fly to the space station in 2003. But the Columbia accident kept them grounded."

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Photo of Atlantis and ISS transiting the sun by Kelson · 2006-09-21 06:42 · Score: 4, Interesting

Yesterday the Bad Astronomy site posted a great photo of Atlantis and the ISS silhouetted against the sun. The photo was taken last Sunday... from the ground! The post over there also links to photographer Thierry Legault's website, with a bunch more space photos.