Atlantis

In Greek mythology, an island continent west of the Straits of Gibraltar, said to have sunk following an earthquake. Although the Atlantic Ocean is probably named after it, the structure of the sea bed rules out its former existence in the Atlantic region. Derived from an Egyptian priest's account, the Greek philosopher Plato created an imaginary early history for the island in Timaeus and Critias, describing it as a utopia (perfect place) submerged 9,000 years previously as punishment for waging war against Athens; an act deemed impious.

Legends about the disappearance of Atlantis may have some connection with the volcanic eruption that devastated Santorini in the Cyclades islands, north of Crete, about 1500 BC. The ensuing earthquakes and tidal waves are believed to have been one cause of the collapse of the empire of Minoan Crete.

Atlantis

US astronaut John Blaha, with the white-room technicians just before boarding space shuttle Atlantis for STS-79. Blaha was mission specialist on this, the first, NASA-Mir crew member-exchange mission, replacing Shannon Lucid on the Mir space station.

The upgraded interior of the space shuttle Atlantis. Nicknamed the ‘glass cockpit’, the new multifunction electronic display subsystem (MEDS) gives clear graphical displays of spacecraft attitude and flight properties.

US astronaut James Voss attached to space shuttle Atlantis's Canadarm during a 6 hour 44 minute EVA (extravehicular activity) on STS-101. Voss and colleague Jeffrey Williams made repairs and fitted new parts to the International Space Station.

Space shuttle Atlantis's payload bay is opened to begin the deployment of the Atmospheric Laboratory for Applications and Science 3 (ATLAS-3). The package, designed to collect solar radiation data, was one of ten major science projects flown on Spacelab mission STS-66.

The space shuttle Atlantis (STS-71 mission) leaving Mir in July 1995. Russian cosmonauts Anatoli Solovyov and Nikolai Budarin took the photograph from the Soyuz transport vehicle.

Fourth of the US space shuttles. It made its first flight on 3 October 1985 with a crew of five.

In 1989 Atlantis launched the Galileo spacecraft on a six-year journey to the planet Jupiter and in 1995 undertook the first of seven missions to dock with the Russian space station Mir, exchanging crew members. After a refit in 1997-98, it resumed service with a series of launches from mid-1999 in support of the International Space Station (ISS), and on 14 February 2001 successfully delivered the US science laboratory module Destiny to the ISS. It continued flying missions to the ISS until October 2002. After a gap of almost four years, the craft resumed such missions in September 2006.