Expedition 27+28 and STS-135 FLOWN ISS cover - final Space Shuttle docking

Historic STS-135 / Expedition 28 Flown International Space Station Cover – Postmarked July 10, 2011, the Final Space Shuttle Docking with the ISS – Signed in Orbit by Nine Astronauts and Cosmonauts

An exceptional flown International Space Station postal cover associated with Expedition 27+28 and STS-135, bearing an onboard cancellation dated July 10, 2011—the historic day on which Space Shuttle Atlantis docked with the International Space Station for the final time.

The cover was carried in space and is signed by nine astronauts and cosmonauts, creating a remarkable contemporary record of the final meeting between a NASA Space Shuttle and the International Space Station.

Its July 10, 2011 onboard cancellation gives the piece particular historical importance, directly associating it with one of the defining dates marking the conclusion of the Space Shuttle era.

The Final Voyage of Space Shuttle Atlantis

Atlantis lifted off from Kennedy Space Center on July 8, 2011, on mission STS-135, the 135th—and final—flight of NASA’s Space Shuttle Program.

Commanded by Christopher Ferguson, with Pilot Douglas Hurley and Mission Specialists Sandra Magnus and Rex Walheim, Atlantis embarked on a final resupply mission to the International Space Station.

Two days after launch, on July 10, 2011, Atlantis approached the orbital complex for what would become the final Space Shuttle rendezvous and docking in history.

Awaiting the shuttle aboard the ISS was the six-member Expedition 28 crew:

Andrey Borisenko, Alexander Samokutyaev, Ronald Garan, Sergei Volkov, Michael Fossum, and Satoshi Furukawa.

For the final time, a Space Shuttle crew joined an International Space Station expedition crew through the open hatch between the two spacecraft.

The moment represented far more than a routine docking. It marked the last operational connection between the ISS and the spacecraft that had played a fundamental role in its construction.

The Shuttle and the International Space Station

Few achievements demonstrate the significance of the Space Shuttle more clearly than the International Space Station itself.

Beginning with the earliest ISS assembly missions, the Shuttle served as the principal heavy-lift vehicle for transporting major station components, scientific equipment, supplies, and crews into orbit. Shuttle astronauts conducted numerous spacewalks to assemble and maintain the growing orbital laboratory, while the orbiter’s payload bay and robotic systems enabled the transportation and installation of structures that could not have reached orbit by other available means.

STS-135 therefore represented the closing chapter of a relationship spanning more than a decade of ISS construction and operations.

Atlantis carried the Raffaello Multi-Purpose Logistics Module, loaded with thousands of pounds of equipment, spare parts, food, and other supplies intended to sustain station operations following the retirement of the Shuttle fleet.

When Atlantis docked on July 10, the combined STS-135 and Expedition 28 crews temporarily brought ten people together aboard the linked Shuttle/ISS complex for the final such gathering in history.

The End of the Space Shuttle Era

The historical importance of STS-135 extends well beyond the mission itself.

NASA's Space Shuttle Program began with the launch of Columbia on STS-1 on April 12, 1981. Over the following thirty years, the Shuttle fleet became one of the defining symbols of human spaceflight, launching satellites and scientific observatories, servicing spacecraft—including the Hubble Space Telescope—and playing an indispensable role in assembling the International Space Station.

With Atlantis’ landing at Kennedy Space Center on July 21, 2011, the program formally came to an end.

Across its thirty-year history, the Shuttle fleet completed 135 missions, carried hundreds of astronauts into orbit, and fundamentally transformed the manner in which humans worked and lived in space.

The July 10 docking represented one of the final ceremonial and operational milestones of that extraordinary program: the last arrival of a Space Shuttle at the International Space Station.

A Remarkable Space-Philatelic Artifact

Flown postal covers have occupied a distinctive place within human spaceflight since the earliest crewed missions. Examples carried aboard spacecraft or space stations combine traditional philately with direct physical participation in a mission and have long been collected as compact documentary artifacts of space exploration.

This example is particularly significant because its onboard July 10, 2011 cancellation corresponds exactly with the date of Atlantis’ final ISS docking.

Further distinguished by the nine astronaut and cosmonaut signatures applied in connection with the mission, the cover serves as both a flown artifact and a collective record of the international crews present during the closing days of the Space Shuttle era.

The convergence of its flight status, mission-date cancellation, multiple crew signatures, Expedition 28 association, and direct connection with STS-135 places this cover among the more historically evocative examples of modern ISS space philately.

Historical Significance

Mission: STS-135 / International Space Station Expedition 28
Spacecraft: Space Shuttle Atlantis / International Space Station
Date of Cancellation: July 10, 2011
Historical Event: Final docking of a Space Shuttle with the International Space Station
Signatures: Nine astronauts and cosmonauts 
Status: Flown aboard the International Space Station

A Witness to the End of an Era

Few dates symbolize the conclusion of the Space Shuttle Program as powerfully as July 10, 2011.

On that day, Atlantis arrived at the International Space Station for the final time, joining the orbital laboratory whose construction the Shuttle fleet had helped make possible. Nine astronaut and cosmonaut signatures transform this flown cover into a uniquely personal record of that moment.

An exceptional artifact from the final Space Shuttle mission—combining flown status, an historically significant onboard cancellation, and the signatures of members of the international crews who witnessed the last Shuttle docking with the ISS. A tangible document from the closing chapter of one of the most consequential programs in the history of human spaceflight.