| posted: 22 April 2010 05:15 pm ET |
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Space shuttle Atlantis held the spotlight late on Wednesday night into early Thursday morning as it rolled out of Kennedy Space Center's Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) in Florida, on its way to the launch pad for what is planned to be its last flight.
The black-and-white winged-orbiter, mounted to an orange external fuel tank and twin white solid rocket boosters, left the voluminous building— the largest one-story building in the world — just before midnight atop a mobile launcher platform and crawler transporter tracked vehicle.
Atlantis' trip to the launch pad came just a day after the successful landing of its sister ship Discovery on Tuesday to wrap up a 15-day flight to the International Space Station.
"One of my favorite shots, almost as fantastic as launch, is coming out here in the middle of the night, watching it clear the VAB doors. When it moves out into the xenon lights and they're shining on it, there's just something very special about that," former astronaut and Kennedy Space Center director Bob Cabana told collectSPACE.com. "The beginning of this journey into space, it all starts when the whole stack rolls out."
Atlantis' first moves at 11:31 p.m. EDT Wednesday were also slated to be among its last.
source:www.space.com/missionlaunches/shuttle-atlantis-final-launch-pad-trip-cs-100422.html#googtrans/en/ar
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