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Credit: collectSPACE/Robert Z. Pearlman
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NASA finished fueling the space shuttle Atlantis' huge external tank early this morning (July 8) to load the orbiter up for the last launch of NASA's venerable shuttle program.

Atlantis is slated to blast off on its final STS-135 mission at 11:26 a.m. EDT (1526 GMT) today from Launch Pad 39A here at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. Workers started filling the shuttle's orange external fuel tank with super-cold liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen propellants at 2:01 a.m. EDT (0601 GMT) and finished on schedule at 4:58 a.m., NASA officials said.

However, current forecasts show that bad weather could keep the shuttle from getting off the ground today. Showers, lightning and thunderstorms are predicted to be in the area around launch time, and NASA pegs the chance of a weather-related scrub at 70 percent.

If stormy weather scuttles today's attempt, NASA will have other opportunities to launch Atlantis tomorrow and Sunday, with the forecasts improving each successive day. The chance of bad weather is forecast to be 40 percent on Saturday and 50 percent on Sunday, according to NASA officials.

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Watch the Last Shuttle Launch LIVE

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Lift-off

Atlantis and four astronauts rocketed into orbit today on Nasa's last space shuttle voyage. The spacecraft dodged bad weather and delighting an estimated one million spectators on hand to witness the end of an era. The spacecraft almost didn't get off the ground though, as the giant countdown clock at Kennedy Space Center stuck at 0.31 for what seemed like an eternity.

In reality, the delay - caused by the need to verify that the launch pad support equipment was retracted all the way - lasted two minutes. But just as the spectators at Cape Canaveral in Florida and tens of millions of television viewers around the world had given up hope, Atlantis began to rise.

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