On July 8, NASA's Space Shuttle Atlantis lifted off for its final mission, a 12-day mission to the International Space Station. The return of the Space shuttle marked the end the 30-year shuttle era.

During the final mission of Atlantis, the shuttle docked to the space station and the crews opened the hatches on the third day. The crew unpacked more than 8,000 pounds of supplies from Raffaello on the sixth day. STS-135 landed at 7:06 a.m. on July 20 at Kennedy. Before leaving orbit, the crew deployed the Solar Cell Experiment, a 5x5x10 satellite.

The space shuttle Atlantis was named after the two-masted boat that served as the primary research vessel for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts from 1930 to 1966. The boat had a 17-member crew and accommodated up to five scientists who worked in two onboard laboratories, examining water samples and marine life.

The space shuttle has defined an era and broken boundaries both in space and on Earth. Among the hundreds of people who have flown on the shuttle, many have been firsts -- for their race, their country or their profession.

Click start to see the firsts and lasts that Atlantis made.

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