NASA launched first flight of space shuttle Atlantis on this day in 1985; read details

On this day October 3, 1985, the STS-51J launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on the first flight of the space shuttle Atlantis. According to NASA, this was the United States Department of Defense’s second mission with payload from the Payload Operations Integration Center at Marshall which now serves as 24 hours, 365 days "science central” for NASA’s space missions. The space shuttle Atlantis was America’s fourth operational and was built by Rockwell International after a contract was handed by NASA on January 29, 1979.

According to news agency NPR, the Atlantis was loaded with cargo built in Russia as it took off for the final cold War military mission which was kept “a secret”. Commander Ken Ham called the mission as the “last flight of Atlantis.” He added, that the US defense has no idea “what she [space shuttle] was going to do next.” Atlantis was also NASA’s first-ever aging fleet to stop flying after managers urged the Congress and the Obama administration to end the space shuttle program. Later the Atlantis was put on standby in case of an emergency to the last shuttle flight, although that bit of role was retired to Endeavour by NASA. 

[Atlantis' final crew included two making their second flight on the vehicle, bringing its total crew members to 155. Credit: NASA]

[Space shuttle Atlantis seen flying in orbit as it backs away from the International Space Station for a final time. Credit: NASA]

In an update by the America Space, it was revealed that the space shuttle flew 32 times with 191 crews for a total of 120,650,907 miles. “In early 2008, NASA officials decided to keep Atlantis flying until 2010, the projected end of the shuttle program. This reversed a previous decision to retire Atlantis in 2008,” the update read. The space shuttle was named after RV Atlantis, the two primary research vessels that sailed for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute from 1930 to 1966. Then RV Atlantis in 2010 was commissioned oceanographic research vessel in the Argentine Naval Prefecture. 

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Flew longest space mission STS-117

Atlantis, the dedicated Department of Defense flight had also flown planetary probes, Magellan, to Venus (on STS-30) and Galileo to Jupiter (on STS-34) in 1989 and deployed the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory in 1991. In a Shuttle-Mir Program of 1995, the STS-71, Atlantis made at least seven flights to the Russian space station Mir, and the two formed the largest spacecraft at the time. In 2009, May, Atlantis flew for Mission 4, STS-125, with 7 member crew to the Hubble Space Telescope. In June 2007, the shuttle flew the longest space mission STS-117 that lasted 14 days. In a November 2009 interview, the shuttle launch director Mike Leinbach called Atlantis better than Discovery on the record with lower Interim Problems. The Space Shuttle Atlantis OV-104 was retired in 2010.

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