Space shuttle Atlantis in historic final lift-off

The 135th and final space shuttle mission has lifted off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

United States, Florida: Space shuttle Atlantis was launched into history at 1529 GMT on Friday, 8^TH July. This 12-day mission will ship 3.5 tonnes of supplies to the International Space Station. Upon its return, the 30-year space shuttle programme will come to a close, with Atlantis and the other two shuttles retired to museums. For many days in the past week, a launch was highly unlikely. The weather on Thursday had thrown torrential rain at the orbiter, and forecasters had been talking grimly of similar conditions developing on Friday. But like it was predicted it did not shower and controllers in the "firing room" gave the "go" for the ascent after a positive poll from their ground teams. Launch director Mike Leinbach told the Atlantis crew - Chris Ferguson, Doug Hurley, Sandy Magnus and Rex Walheim - to "have a little fun up there" with "a true American icon". Leinbach's call encouraged a huge cheer from the thousands of guests inside the Kennedy Space Center and they rushed to grab the best viewing spot.Many were lined the tops of buildings around Kennedy Space Center; others went down by the famous countdown clock on the lawn in front of the press complex. For a few moments, everyone was disappointment when the count was suddenly stopped at 31 seconds to check equipment on the launch pad which would not obstruct a clean get away by the orbiter. But once it was safe, the count picked up again and Atlantis soon raced skyward.The spectators inside Kennedy Space Center, and the hundreds of thousands gathered outside the centre, did not see the shuttle climb for long. Within a minute she disappeared through the clouds for the chase out over the Atlantic and a rendezvous with the International Space Station (ISS) on Sunday. The ship and her crew will spend seven days docked at the orbiting platform. The goals of the spaceship include delivering a huge load of food to the International Space Station. Frank Bruni, an op-ed columnist for the New York Times, compared the end of the space shuttle program to the end of America's sense of discovery, and the feeling that anything is possible: "The program's end carries the force of cruel metaphor, coming at a time when limits are all we talk about. When we have no stars in our eyes."