Space Shuttle Atlantis hurtles into the evening sky on mission STS-117 to the International Space Station.

Space Shuttle Atlantis hurtles into the evening sky on mission STS-117 to the International Space Station. Below it, clouds of smoke and steam roll across the horizon. The brilliance of the launch casts the shrubbery in the foreground into deep shadows. Liftoff of Atlantis was on-time at 7:38:04 p.m. EDT. The shuttle is delivering a new segment to the starboard side of the International Space Station's backbone, known as the truss. Three spacewalks are planned to install the S3/S4 truss segment, deploy a set of solar arrays and prepare them for operation. STS-117 is the 118th space shuttle flight, the 21st flight to the station, the 28th flight for Atlantis and the first of four flights planned for 2007. Photo credit: NASA/Sandra Joseph & Robert Murray