Historic Photo Captures Bird's-Eye View of Atlantis Re-entry

A shutterbug aboard the international space station took the concept of a bird’s-eye view to unprecedented heights and captured the re-entry of the final U.S. space shuttle flight from space in grand fashion.

The historic photo early Thursday captured the contrail of Atlantis as it broke back into the Earth’s atmosphere en route to its 5:56 a.m. picture-perfect landing at Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Fla.

After the photo was taken, Atlantis plunged into the atmosphere, where its wings could provide the steering capability that they couldn’t do in the vacuum of space.

Atlantis was traveling at 14 times the speed of sound when it passed over Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, and dropping at the rate of 200 feet per second, according to the Top of the Ticket blog in the Los Angeles Times.

“Thirteen minutes later, having circled to scrub off speed, the 225,000-pound glider lumbered over the end of Kennedy Space Center's Runway 15 for the last time at 205 knots to begin its groundbound retirement. Technicians can't go beneath the orbiter for 30 minutes after landing, so hot are its protective tiles,” the Top of the Ticket reported.


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This unprecedented view of the space shuttle Atlantis, appearing like a bean sprout against clouds and city lights shows the shuttle on its way home as photographed by the Expedition 28 crew of the International Space Station through a window of the station in this July 21, 2011 NASA handout photo. Airglow over Earth can be seen in the background. The Atlantis and its four-member crew returned to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Thursday after a mission to resupply the International Space Station, ending a 12-year program to build and service the orbital research outpost. REUTERS/NASA/Handout