By Irene Klotz
Cape Canaveral, Florida - The shuttle Atlantis touched down at its Florida home port on Friday, wrapping up an 11-day mission to deliver cargo to the International Space Station, one of Nasa's final supply runs before the shuttle fleet is retired next year.
Gliding through clear, blue skies, commander Charles Hobaugh circled Atlantis high over the Kennedy Space Centre to burn off speed, then nosed the 100-ton space plane toward a 5km concrete runway framed by palm trees and marshlands.
"Couldn't have picked a clearer day," Hobaugh said as he caught sight of the runway.
Atlantis touched down at 9.44am, capping Nasa's fifth and final flight of the year and the 129th mission in shuttle programme history.
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"That was a picture perfect end," astronaut Chris Ferguson radioed to the crew from Mission Control in Houston. "Everybody, welcome back to Earth."
Just five shuttle missions remain to complete the $100 billion orbital outpost, a project of 16 nations that has been under construction 355km above Earth for 11 years.
"We're entering the golden era of the International Space Station programme," station crew member Bob Thirsk, with the Canadian Space Agency, said during an in-flight press conference this week.
Nasa is building capsule-type spaceships to replace the shuttles, which are being retired due to safety concerns and high operating costs.
The new ships also will enable Nasa to fly astronauts to the moon and other destinations in the solar system, in addition to the station. They will not be ready until 2015 at the earliest, however.
Until then, Russian, European and Japanese cargo ships will take over the job of flying food, fuel and supplies to the outpost, though none can handle the bulky station spare parts that fit in the shuttle cargo bay.
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