24 amazing images from Space Shuttle Endeavour's last ride
When Endeavour returned to Earth on June 1st, it marked the last flight for the spacecraft and the second to last flight of the entire Space Shuttle program. These 23 pictures were taken during the past few weeks as Endeavour carried out her last mission, and the image you're looking at above is especially wild.
The only way to take a picture of a space shuttle and the ISS at the same time is to have another spacecraft out there carrying astronauts with cameras, which isn't something that's ever happened before. During Discovery's last mission, a proposal was put forward to have a Russian Soyuz spacecraft undock from the ISS and fly a circle around it specifically to take a picture of a shuttle docked with the ISS, but NASA nixed the idea citing safety concerns.
In fact, the only reason that this picture was possible on Endeavour's mission is that a launch delay of two weeks just happened push the shuttle's ISS visit back to coincide with a scheduled Soyuz departure, and Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli was able to snap some photos on his way back to Earth.
The rest of STS-134 went flawlwessly, as the crew installed the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer on the ISS, added a boom sensing system, and performed a myriad of other repairs and installations over four separate spacewalks and a total of nearly 17 days in orbit. After returning to Earth, Endeavour will eventually make her way to the California Science Center, where she will go on public display.
All the images used in this article come from NASA's generous online archive.
Via NASA
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Endeavour is moved to the Vehicle Assembly Building to be prepared for its final launch for STS-134, as NASA employees celebrate.
At just under 200 feet tall, Endeavour is dwarfed by the Vehicle Assembly Building as it's prepared for mating with its booster rockets and external fuel tank.
Everything comes together on top of the mobile launcher platform, which will roll the shuttle out to the launch pad.
Meanwhile, astronauts are training for the mission in the full-motion shuttle mission simulator.
Mission training also involves super-low tech spacewalk simulations.
Undoubtedly the most important aspect of preparing for a shuttle mission is taste-testing all the space food.
Virtual reality training combines special helmets and motion sensing gloves to generate live computer simulations of mission tasks.
A shuttle training aircraft is a Gulfstream business jet specially modified to mimic the handling of a space shuttle during the final landing phase, and are used by astronauts for landing practice.
Endeavour's 3.4 mile crawl from the Vehicle Assembly Building to the launch pad took about eight hours.
Waiting for launch.
Endeavour launches from Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center to begin STS-134 on May 16, 2011.
A shuttle training aircraft photographs Endeavour punching through clouds on the way to space.
View from the flight deck as Endeavour approaches the ISS for docking.
The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (center left) installed on the ISS.
The ISS and Earth from Endeavour .
Astronauts remove old experiments and install new ones during a six hour spacewalk outside the ISS.
This image of Endeavour docked with the ISS was taken by a departing Russian Soyuz spacecraft, and is the first-ever image of a space shuttle docked to the International Space Station.
Endeavour and the ISS hang over the Earth.
This long exposure image shows Endeavour transferring cargo as the Earth spins below.
Endeavour docked to the Harmony node, with the ESA's Columbus laboratory on the right.
Endeavour lands for the last time at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on June 1, 2011, after a total of over 122.8 million miles and 299 days in space.
After landing, Endeavour heads to the Orbiter Processing Facility to be decommissioned and prepared for public display at the California Science Center.
One of the highlights of STS-134 is the installation of the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer to the ISS. The AMS is shown here being loaded into a cargo container for delivery to the shuttle.
STS-134 mission patch.
