A festive send-off

The day's fanfare included a marching band, shuttle workers, and astronauts on hand to see the shuttle off.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, a veteran of Atlantis' STS-45, said the shuttle program's 30 years of accomplishments continued the space agency on a path of groundbreaking exploration.

In 2009, Atlantis conducted the last servicing mission to NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, outfitting the groundbreaking observatory with new sensors and the hardware it would need to remain functional. In 1995, Atlantis became a high-profile symbol of cooperation when it docked with the Russian space station Mir.