Doug Hurley EEI

Its east landing Thursday will close the era of the North American space rocket. The objective of the USA is to reach an asteroid in 2025 and Mars in 2030. The Atlantis ferry took leave east Tuesday of Estacin Espacial Internacional (EEI) to a trip without return and its east landing Thursday in Cabo Cane plantation will close the era of the North American space rocket. A chapter of thirty years of history whose end will leave a flavor bittersweet. The crew awoke with the Don' song; t Panic, of Coldplay, dedicated to pilot Doug Hurley, person in charge to guide the Atlantis in its maneuver of undocking of the EEI. And the ship, with its four astronauts on board, loosen to 08,28 mooring cables to Spanish peninsular hour, when they were to 391 kilometers on the Pacific Ocean after eight days, 15 hours and 21 minutes acomplada to the orbital laboratory.

The ferry completed its pirouette of inspection around the Space station with the aim of which the crew of the station could inspect ocular of the ferry, while from the ship took three-dimensional photos from high quality with the robtico arm. The intention was to determine the condition of the thermal panels who have the cover, the leading edge and the surface of the wings that protect the Atlantis that, when entering the atmosphere their return, will be put under a temperature of about 2,000 degrees. 35 years in the space No ship will replace the vehicle that during 30 years has taken to load and crew to the space. The NASA has yielded the witness to the private sector so that it develops the ship of the future, taking advantage of some the capacities of the space agency, and it has been marked like new objectives human exploration reaching an asteroid in 2025 and arriving at Mars in 2030. The space agency hope that the first commercial vehicles are ready for 2015; meanwhile, the American astronauts will depend on the Russian ships the Soyuz to travel to the EEI, whose trips will have to pay about 50 million dollars. The program of the ferrys initiated its walking in 1981 with the launching of Columbia that they followed the Challenger (1983), the Discovery (1984), the Atlantis (1985) and the Endeavour (1992), that became the flag of the space reconnaissance of the USA.

The Challenger and Columbia suffered individual accidents first operated 73 seconds after taking off in January of 1986 and Columbia was disintegrated in February of 2003 when rejoined in the atmosphere, which caused that the public tied still more with the program. In this last mission, the Atlantis have taken more than 4,000 kilos of provisions and equipment, including more than 1,100 kilos of food, that will help to that the EEI continues operating during 2012, and several experiments, one designed for the vaccine development against salmonella. Like memory of this historical mission, before closing the two hatchways, the crew of the Atlantis gave to their companions of the EEI the flag that a commemorative shield of mission STS-135 traveled to the first space trip and, the last one of the era of the ferrys. Source of the news: Atlantis ferry says to its definitive goodbye to the Space station the International