Last Space Shuttle
Space shuttle Atlantis lifts off from pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center on July 8, 2011 in Cape Canaveral, Fla.
Atlantis with its crew four, was the 135th and final space shuttle launch for NASA.
Space Shuttle Atlantis closes out an era for NASA
In a bit of a break from the normal blog posting for me, I wanted to show some of the coverage of the final Space Shuttle Launch on July 8, 2011. This was back in the days of doing a lot of news and editorial work for news outlets around the world.
These were all done for the photo agency that represents my work - ZUMA Press. Covering the Shuttle/space launches is something that always fascinated me. I did my first launch in 1991 after returning the US after 15 years of living and working in Germany.
Each launch was slightly different, time of day, light, which launch pad etc. One thing that was never different how amazing it was to see in person as a Space Shuttle blasted off from the pad. The thrust was deafening, the closet we could be to a launch was 3 miles, even at that distance you could hear and FEEL the power of the shuttle.
In all I photographed 25-30 launches, not all from the Cape since there were times I wanted something different. But for the final mission I had to be there to capture the history for one last time. Ten days later, the shuttle returned home from its mission in a pre-dawn landing at KSC.
An interesting side note, Atlantis pilot Doug Hurley was one of the two Astronauts Space-X launched in its first test mission in May 2020.
