KSC-2012-3561

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - At the Shuttle Landing Facility SLF at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Chad Stout with C Spray Glass Blasting in Cocoa, Fla., prepares to install a special plaque to mark the nose gear wheel stop of space shuttle Atlantis. Stout is cutting the 15,000 by 1,000-foot-long concrete runway to accommodate the black granite plaque, which is 16 by 28 inches. It is the third plaque permanently mounted to commemorate the final landing of each of the three orbiters. Atlantis completed the STS-135 mission by landing at the SLF on July 21, 2011, at 5:57 a.m. Atlantis flew 33 missions, completed 4,848 orbits of the Earth, traveled nearly 126 million miles and spent 307 days in space. Atlantis carried 207 astronauts to space. Photo credit: NASA/Charisse Nahser