spacetoday.net: Atlantis lands at KSC

Posted: Wed, May 26, 2010, 5:12 PM ET (2112 GMT)
STS-132: landing (NASA/KSC)

The space shuttle Atlantis landed Wednesday morning at the Kennedy Space Center, ending what is currently scheduled to be the final mission for that orbiter. Atlantis landed on its first opportunity at KSC, touching down at the Shuttle Landing Facility runway at 8:48 am EDT (1248 GMT). The landing ended the nearly 12-day STS-132 mission, where astronauts installed a new Russian lab module to the ISS as well as performed three spacewalks to perform work outside the station. The mission is the last one on the current manifest, with only two more missions overall, although Atlantis will be prepared to serve as a "launch on need" rescue mission should something happen on the final scheduled mission. NASA is considering converting that contingency mission into an actual mission next year to deliver additional supplies to the station, although no decision on that has been made.