Live: Space Shuttle Atlantis's Final Launch

By John Mahoney Posted 07.08.2011 at 7:32 am 5 Comments

Good Morning From Cape Canaveral John Mahoney

Morning everybody. That's the view from the press viewing mound as of around 6:45 AM EST this morning. The weather is actually somewhat pleasant, with streaks of sun passing through the cloud cover. But the chance of favorable launch conditions is still a scant 30 percent. We're a little less than four hours from the planned launch as of this update--you can follow along here with the NASA TV broadcast, as well as updates from us here and on Twitter. Go Atlantis!

7:54 AM EST: As of now, there have been no technical issues in the countdown whatsoever. The only deal breaker currently is the weather. And that's a big one.

8:24 AM EST: I must post this shot of Atlantis last night. Seeing it this close all lit up at night was amazing:

8:32 AM EST: Twitter seems to be having trouble with their embedded widgets at the moment. We're still updating there, though. The next notable events in the countdown are the crew hatch closing at 9:21 AM EST, and then a countdown hold at T-20 minutes at 10:11 AM EST.

Here is the official NASA TV feed:

And here are our updates live from Kennedy Space Center on Twitter:

Check out our photo gallery of Atlantis on the pad poised for launch here, and the rest of our STS-135 coverage here

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5 Comments

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logical_atheist

07/08/11 at 8:11 am

Eh, got some mixed feelings about the end of the shuttle program. One one hand, it has proven that a re-usable, consistent spacecraft is possible to construct and use on a regular basis. On the other hand, it squandered so many resources (due to human spaceflight being relatively expensive) that we could have used on unmanned space missions that, on a relative basis, could've given us much more knowledge than we could've dreamed. I could only imagine what we could've used the shuttle program's money on, missions to europa, titan, launching JWST, .etc. All those exciting things that i and many others have been hoping would happen for years.

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jamiebrown6

07/08/11 at 9:44 am

It's incredible the shuttle's been going for 30 years! That's a very long time in technological and engineering terms. I wonder what the future holds!

http://opentothefuture.com

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wizzlebippi

07/08/11 at 11:57 am

While the space shuttle was a revolutionary idea, it was a very bloated project that never really came to fruition. I am sad to see it go, but with NASA in the hands of politicians there was no way for NASA to move beyond the shuttle.

Hopefully, with NASA backing private industry, like SpaceX, we can return to the moon or maybe even finally go to mars.

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rettaH_daM

07/08/11 at 12:47 pm

So now, we hitch rides with the Russians. I wonder what JFK would think?

"We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon... we choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too." - Pres. John F. Kennedy, Sept. 12 1962.

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