In Pictures: Final shuttle launch
- Published
It was widely held that Friday's launch of space shuttle Atlantis would be a "no-go" for launch because of inclement weather conditions that prevailed straight through Thursday and into Friday morning.
Nonetheless, every vantage point around Florida's "space coast" was slowly colonised by spectators, some of whom staked out a spot and camped overnight.
By Friday morning, crowds were gathering up and down the coast; Reuters estimated as many as a million spectators had gathered.
The crew - Rex Walheim, Sandy Magnus, Doug Hurley, and Chris Ferguson - were strapped into the Atlantis orbiter hours before the weather conditions were declared good enough for launch.
Once the weather conditions were given a "green", the launch was just two-and-a-half minutes behind schedule - after a brief hiccup with the shuttle's Gaseous Oxygen Vent Arm, the "beanie cap" that sits atop the external fuel tank on the launch pad.
Jubilation spread through the assembled crowds, from those lucky enough to see the launch from Kennedy Space Center, to the hundreds of thousands further afield.
Atlantis' mission is to replenish supplies on the International Space Station, where she will dock on Sunday; her return in 12 days' time will mark the end of 30 years of the shuttle programme - and perhaps a new era of manned spaceflight.