[9][10][11][12] During an address at the Marshall Space Flight Center on November 16, 2010, NASA administrator Charles Bolden said that the agency needed to fly STS-135 to the station in 2011 due to possible delays in the development of commercial rockets and spacecraft designed to transport cargo to the ISS.

The External Thermal Cooling System (ETCS) Pump Module (PM) stored on ESP-2, which failed and was replaced on orbit in August 2010, rode home on the LMC so that a failure analysis can be performed on the ground.

[40] Two Nexus S smartphones were also installed inside Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellites (SPHERES) to allow the crew to pilot them aboard the ISS.

During their tour of the Orbiter Processing Facility, the president's family was accompanied by United Space Alliance tile technician Terry White and astronaut Janet Kavandi.

[76] CAPCOM astronaut Barry Wilmore radioed the crew from mission control in Houston, reporting that a preliminary analysis found no signs of any significant debris or impact damage during the ascent.

Crew members Fossum, Volkov and Furukawa also held a meeting with the ground imagery experts to discuss the planned photography shoot during Atlantis's rendezvous pitch maneuver (RPM).

Commander Chris Ferguson and pilot Douglas Hurley performed a series of rendezvous burns (NH, NC4, NCC, MC1-4 and TI) to boost the orbit of Atlantis to match with that of the ISS.

[84] By 13:26 UTC, with Ferguson flying Atlantis from the aft flight deck, the shuttle positioned 600 feet (180 m) beneath the ISS and began the 360-degree flip rendezvous pitch maneuver (RPM).

CAPCOM Megan McArthur also notified commander Chris Ferguson that the Mission Management Team decided not to do a Focused Inspection of the Atlantis's heat shield.

The main tasks for the spacewalk included retrieving a failed pump module from an external stowage platform of the ISS for return to Earth inside the shuttle's cargo bay, installing two experiments and repairing a new base for the station's robotic arm.

Recognizing the historical significance, Mission Specialist Rex Walheim, who served as the intra-vehicular officer to coordinate the spacewalk from Atlantis's flight deck, radioed: "Take a look around, Ronny.

[100] All four shuttle crew members took some time out of their work at 16:54 UTC to talk with reporters from WBNG-TV and WICZ-TV in Binghamton, New York, near Pilot Doug Hurley's home town of Apalachin and KGO-TV of San Francisco.

[103] For dinner, both the Atlantis and station crews enjoyed a special "All-American Meal" of barbecue brisket or grilled chicken and baked beans, southwestern corn and apple pie.

While Ferguson and Hurley focused on computer troubleshooting, Mission Specialists Magnus and Walheim together with the station crew continued to work on cargo transfers between Atlantis and the ISS.

[113] Early on the day, Commander Ferguson and Pilot Hurley also spent some time working to successfully repair the door that gives the crew access to the LiOH canisters.

Just before the crew prepared to go for sleep, CAPCOM Megan McArthur notified them that the flight controllers thought that the GPC-4 failure was caused by a single event upset (teams on the ground listed a Coronal Mass Ejection as one of three potential contributing factors)[116] and that GPC-4 was a healthy machine.

At 10:10 UTC, pilot Doug Hurley and Mission Specialist Rex Walheim answered videotaped questions from students at NASA Explorer Schools across the United States.

[118] After their midday meal, Mission Specialist Sandra Magnus and Commander Chris Ferguson worked a little over an hour continuing to move experiments and equipment to and from Atlantis's middeck.

Arm operators, Mission Specialist Magnus and Pilot Hurley working inside the cupola, un-berthed Raffaello at 10:48 UTC and moved it back to Atlantis's payload bay.

Atlantis and Space Station crew members said their goodbyes and closed hatches between the two spacecraft at 14:28 UTC, ending seven days, 21 hours, 41 minutes of joined docked operations.

[123] With pilot Douglas Hurley at the control, undocking occurred at 6:28 UTC as the two spacecraft flew through orbital night above the Pacific Ocean east of Christchurch, New Zealand.

Before beginning a final half-lap unique fly, pilot Doug Hurley paused the shuttle by firing thrusters for a moment and during this time the space station changed its orientation by rotating 90 degrees to the right.

[125] That gave the Atlantis crew a good opportunity to take still camera photographs and shoot video of station areas not normally documented in previous shuttle fly-arounds.

Magnus and ground engineers began reviewing the collected data to verify that shuttle's TPS has received no impact damage from micrometeoroids or space junk during its docked operations or fly-around of the station.

[127] Mission managers cleared Atlantis for re-entry after reviewing results of the late inspection survey of the shuttle's heat shield, performed by the crew on the flight day 12.

Atlantis's crew also deployed an 8.2-lb (3.7-kg), 5×5×10-inch technology demonstration picosatellite, the Pico-Satellite Solar Cell experiment (PSSC-2), into a low Earth orbit at around 360 km,[128] from inside a spring ejection canister in the shuttle's payload bay.

This process verified the functionality of Atlantis's flight control surfaces, actuating the rudder, speed brakes, wing and tail body flaps which guided the shuttle through the atmosphere.

The Empire State Building in New York City paid tribute to 30 years of Space Shuttle flights by lighting up in red, white and blue throughout the night of July 20.

[134][135][139] Recognizing the conclusion of an era, Mission Commentator Rob Navias declared on nose wheel touchdown "Having fired the imagination of a generation, a ship like no other, its place in history secured, the space shuttle pulls into port for the last time.

to which Entry CAPCOM Barry Wilmore replied "We congratulate you, Atlantis, as well as the thousands of passionate individuals across this great space faring nation who truly empowered this incredible spacecraft which for three decades has inspired millions around the globe.