Within a few days, orbiter Atlantis is scheduled to lift off on NASA's final space shuttle mission — a flight that promises to bring the difficult assembly and outfitting of the international space station (ISS) to a successful close. We've known this day was coming for much of the last decade and witnessed space shuttle's Discovery and Endeavour enter retirement earlier this year. Thousands of Americans who have contributed to the success of NASA's longest-running human spaceflight program can look back with pride. They've pioneered reusable spacecraft operations, satellite retrieval and repair, and demonstrated the assembly of large structures in Earth orbit. They transformed our understanding of the universe with the launch and servicing of the Hubble Space Telescope and strengthened ties with other visionary nations through the orbital assembly of ISS.
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