Atlantis Crew Heading Back to Earth (Video)

Atlantis Undocks From the ISS for the Last Time (NASA)Atlantis has departed from the International Space Station (ISS), and the four astronauts onboard are on their way back to Earth, after completing the shuttle program STS-135, a 12-day mission to drop off hardware and new supplies for the ISS.

This was the 135th and final trip for Atlantis, which is about to be retired, marking the end of NASA's 30-year Space Shuttle program or Space Transportation System (STS).

The four crew members are Commander Chris Ferguson, Pilot Doug Hurley, and Mission Specialists Sandy Magnus and Rex Walheim.

"It's been an honor having you guys onboard," said ISS flight engineer Ron Garan of NASA at a farewell ceremony, according to NASA.

Before the farewell, both crews completed the last of the packing, ensuring all new supplies were unloaded, and broken parts and trash put on Atlantis to be brought back to Earth. Much of the equipment was loaded into the Raffaello multi-purpose logistics module, a storage container.

The shuttle astronauts also left behind something special on the ISSan American flagthe same one that was launched on the very first shuttle mission, the STS-1 flight of Columbia in 1981.

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After the retirement of the space shuttle program, NASA plans to shift attention to building spaceships to transport humans beyond low-Earth orbit and ultimately to Mars.

In the meantime, NASA will begin relying on Russian spacecraft to transport U.S. astronauts, until American spaceships are ready to do so.