WIKIARCHIVES.SPACE

With rehearsals and simulations all behind them now, a room full of flight controllers readies for the launch of STS-135, the final mission for the Space Shuttle Program, in the shuttle flight control room in the Johnson Space Center's Mission Control Center. Ascent flight director Richard Jones (frame center) reaches over a console for a congratulatory hand shake with NASA managers Norm Knight (right) and John McCullough. McCullough and Knight are chief and deputy chief, respectively, of the flight directors office. A few hundred miles away, a four-person flight crew was inside the cabin of space shuttle Atlantis on Launch Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center also prepping for the launch.