WEBVTT

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Music

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George Diller/NASA Public Affairs Officer: Atlantis is the fourth orbiter in

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NASA's space shuttle fleet to launch from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

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Also designated Orbiter Vehicle-104, or OV-104, Atlantis is named after the primary research

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vessel for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts from 1930 to 1966.

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Atlantis arrived at Kennedy on April 13, 1985, from Palmdale, Calif., and spent seven months

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in an orbiter processing facility while NASA and contractor workers prepared

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the vehicle for its maiden voyage.

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NASA Launch Commentator: Ignition and liftoff. Liftoff of Atlantis, a new orbiter

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joins the shuttle fleet and it has cleared the tower.

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Space shuttle Atlantis launched on its first spaceflight, STS-51J, on Oct. 3, 1985,

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and carried a classified payload for the U.S. Department of Defense.

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During the last 25 years, Atlantis has served as the on-orbit launch site

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for many noteworthy spacecraft, including the planetary probes Magellan and Galileo.

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Starting with STS-71, Atlantis pioneered the Shuttle-Mir missions,

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flying the first seven missions to dock with the Russian space station.

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During the fourth docking mission, STS-79, in September 1996,

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Atlantis ferried astronaut Shannon Lucid back to Earth after her record-setting 188 days in orbit

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aboard Mir. In recent years, Atlantis delivered several vital components to the

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International Space Station, including the U.S. laboratory module Destiny,

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as well as the Quest Joint Airlock and multiple sections of the integrated truss structure

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that make up the station's backbone. The STS-125 mission aboard Atlantis in May 2009

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was the fifth and final Hubble Space Telescope Servicing Mission.

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Throughout the years, Atlantis has undergone two overhauls knows as

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Orbiter Maintenance Down Periods. Some of the most significant upgrades and

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new features include installation of the drag chute, improved nosewheel steering,

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installation of the space station airlock and orbiter docking system, and the multifunction

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electronic display system, or ?glass cockpit." With the launch of Atlantis on STS-132,

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the vehicle will have flown 32 missions, carried more than 200 astronauts to and from space,

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and traveled hundreds of millions of miles.

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