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The docking capped a two-day journey that began with an emotional send-off from the Kennedy Space Center, where about 1 million spectators gathered to watch the shuttle thunder into the sky for the program's 135th and final flight

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CAPE CANAVERAL, USA: U.S. space shuttle Atlantis arrived at the International Space Station on Sunday to deliver a last batch of supplies to the orbiting outpost on the final flight of the U.S. shuttle program.

Commander Chris Ferguson gently eased Atlantis into its parking slip on the station's Harmony node at 11:07 a.m. EDT as the spacecraft soared 230 miles over the Pacific Ocean.

"Welcome to the International Space Station for the last time," station flight engineer Ron Garan radioed to the crew.

Crews opened Atlantis' hatch less than two hours later and the shuttle's 4-member crew floated through the airlock into the recently completed $100 billion orbital outpost.

After a 30-year history that has cost nearly $200 billion and claimed the lives of 14 astronauts, the shuttles are being retired to make way for a new generation of spacecraft that President Barack Obama says will put U.S. astronauts on an asteroid and then on to Mars.

The docking capped a two-day journey that began with an emotional send-off from the Kennedy Space Center, where about 1 million spectators gathered on Friday to watch the shuttle thunder into the sky for the program's 135th and final flight.

About an hour before docking, Ferguson gently somersaulted Atlantis so Garan and crew-mates aboard the station could photograph the shuttle's delicate heat-resistant tiles.

"Poetry in motion," said mission commentator Rob Navias as television cameras aboard the station relayed video of the sleek spaceship slowly backflipping over the cloud-speckled northern Atlantic Ocean.

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Atlantis docks at space station on last mission

Article updated: 2/13/2013 8:43 AM

Orbiting about 250 miles above Earth, NASA astronaut Kevin Ford spends his days working with a crew studying potential cures for osteoporosis. But he's longing for a golf range and a meal that doesn't come in a ready-to-eat package.

Ford, currently the commander of the International Space Station's Expedition 34 six-person crew, spoke to several dozen St. Raphael Catholic School students Tuesday afternoon via a live video feed.

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During the half-hour chat, students were able to watch Ford float around a portion of the space station as he answered their questions. Ford was only able to hear the students.

"(Floating in zero gravity) is pretty crazy. We get used to it after a while so it becomes very second nature for us to fly around and use handrails to guide us easily inside the space station," Ford said as he performed a variety of zero-gravity gymnastics.

"I think if I had to choose, I would rather have gravity instead of zero gravity," he said. "It's fun for a while, but I'd rather live on Earth."

Ford joined the space station in late October and is scheduled to return to Earth in mid-March.

"I'm conditioned enough now that I can stay up here as long as they need me to," he said. "But I'm looking forward to coming home."

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Astronaut aboard space station ‘visits’ Naperville school