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( Space Shuttle Atlantis)
Space Shuttle Atlantis (Orbiter Vehicle Designation OV-104) is one of the three currently operational orbiters in the Space Shuttle fleet of NASA, the space agency of the United States.[2] (The other two are Discovery and Endeavour.) Atlantis was the fourth operational shuttle built. "Atlantis" is named after a two-masted sailing ship that operated from 1930 to 1966 for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.[3] In early 2008, NASA officials decided to keep Atlantis flying until 2010, the projected end of the Shuttle program.[4] This reversed a previous decision to retire Atlantis in 2008.[5][6] The first flight of Atlantis, STS-51-J, took place during October 1985. The mission was one of five flights during which crews conducted classified military activities. Atlantis flew one other mission, STS-61-B, before the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster temporarily grounded the shuttle fleet in 1986. Beginning in 1995 with STS-71, Atlantis made seven straight flights to Mir (a Russian space station) as part of the Shuttle-Mir Program.
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