Launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis

Date: September 9, 2006 • Location: Washington, United States

Space Shuttle Program: Space Shuttle Atlantis is launched on STS-115 to resume assembling the International Space Station. It is the first ISS assembly mission after the Columbia disaster back in 2003.

Space Shuttle Atlantis is a retired Space Shuttle orbiter vehicle which belongs to NASA, the spaceflight and space exploration agency of the United States. Atlantis was manufactured by the Rockwell International company in Southern California and was delivered to the Kennedy Space Center in Eastern Florida in April 1985. Atlantis is the fourth operational and the second-to-last Space Shuttle built. Its maiden flight was STS-51-J made from October 3 to 7, 1985. It was, along with Challenger, one of only two orbiters equipped to carry the Shuttle-Centaur booster.