WIKIARCHIVES.SPACE

At NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, space shuttle Atlantis rolls toward the open doors of Orbiter Processing Facility 1. Atlantis was demated from the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, or SCA, via the mate/demate device at the Shuttle Landing Facility. After its May 24 landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California, which concluded its STS-125 mission, the modified Boeing 747 SCA carried the shuttle on a two-day ferry flight from Edwards to Kennedy beginning June 1. Atlantis' next assignment is the STS-129 mission, targeted to launch in November 2009.