The U.S. space shuttle program researched, explored and captured the country’s imagination for 30 years.

On Friday (July 8), NASA launched its final shuttle, Atlantis, as the agency moves to develop a different spacecraft in the coming years.

West Virginia University professor Dimitris Vassiliadis, a research associate professor whose area of expertise is space plasma physics and who is a leader of the WVU Sounding-Rocket Student Program funded by the West Virginia Space Grant Consortium, is available to speak about the end of the shuttle program and the final launch of Atlantis.

He can be reached at 202-315-6976 or dimitris.vassiliadis@mail.wvu.edu or d_vassi@yahoo.com.

-WVU-

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