Photo credit: NASA/Tony Gray and Tom Farrar

I admit, I download every launch and landing photo from KSC Media Archive, every shuttle mission. I have for some time. It’s gotten to the point where I can tell if they’re not done uploading the pictures to the gallery yet, because this or that angle is missing. Yes, I’m admitting just how nerdy I am, shut up with the laughing already. I’m not about to tell you “it all looks the same”, but there are recognizable angles, camera locations, etc. When a NEW view appears, like the landing photo above, I’m thrilled to bits!

Sadly, this may very well be Atlantis’ last mission. All good things come to an end… still, I root for her, that she might have one last hurrah with the spare ET/SRBs we’ll have left over. Time will tell!

Photo credit: NASA/Jack Pfaller

Photo by Thierry Legault.

Thierry Legault has done it again: a beautifully sharp solar transit image of the ISS with Atlantis attached (on the left side.) Above is a crop at full resolution; below is the full frame (with a sunspot for… scale?)

Solar Transit of ISS and Atlantis on May 22, 2010. Photo by Thierry Legault.

Last Friday marked the (probably) final launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis. Now that we’re down to the “finals”, I’m not sure how to feel. :\ And strange as it seems to me, next time there’s a launch, I’ll be there in person. Somewhere.

Image Credit & Copyright: Ben Cooper, LaunchPhotography.com

The VAB is something I’ve always wanted to see — the size boggles the mind. (At least, every photo or video I’ve seen of it has boggled my mind.) What can you say about a building that has its own weather inside?

Space Shuttle Atlantis embarks tomorrow on its final at the moment mission. Godspeed Atlantis and the crew of STS-132!

Atlantis has lifted off, but not from launch pad 39A. Instead, this sharp, wide-angle photo taken on April 13, shows the space shuttle orbiter lifted off the floor of Kennedy Space Center’s Vehicle Assembly Building. Shortly afterwards, Atlantis was attached to an external fuel tank and solid rocket boosters prior to roll out. Now resting on pad 39A, Atlantis is scheduled for its actual liftoff on May 14. Embarking on the STS-132 mission to the International Space Station, that launch will represent the final scheduled launch for Atlantis. Atlantis was named for a sailing ship operated for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute from 1930 to 1966. The maiden voyage of the Atlantis, Orbiter Vehicle-104, began on October 3, 1985. In 1991, Atlantis deployed the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory.