Space shuttle Atlantis poised for final flight

Space Shuttle Atlantis STS-132's crew (from L-R), mission specialists Michael Good, Garrett Reisman, pilot Dominic Antonelli, commander Kenneth Ham, mission specialists Stephen Bowen and Piers Sellers pose for a group photo after arriving at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida May 10, 2010.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA cleared the space shuttle Atlantis for liftoff on Friday to deliver a Russian docking module to the International Space Station on what is expected to be the ship's final flight.

Launch is targeted for 2:20 p.m. EDT from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The 132nd space shuttle mission is the third of five flights scheduled for this year, after which the United States plans to retire its three-ship shuttle fleet due to cost and safety concerns.

"It's been a glorious career," Mike Moses, head of the shuttle mission management team, said on Wednesday. "We're not taking a lot of time reflecting back here before launch, but I'm sure once she gets back we'll have a few celebrations. It's a bittersweet time."

President Barack Obama wants to scrap NASA's planned follow-on program to return astronauts to the moon and instead invest in new technologies and heavy-lift rockets for travel beyond Earth's orbit. Obama's plan calls for commercial firms to fly astronauts to and from the space station, a service the United States now pays Russia $51 million a seat to provide.

Only three countries -- the United States, Russia and China -- have ever launched people into orbit. China is not a member of the 16-nation space station partnership.

JOBS LOST AS SHUTTLES RETIRE

Obama's proposal is pending before Congress and is controversial, adding more uncertainty about the future of U.S. human space programs. Last week, 800 shuttle-related manufacturing and support service jobs were eliminated, trimming the work force to 10,700, said program manager John Shannon.

In Florida, officials estimate 8,000 NASA-related jobs will be lost when the shuttles are retired later this year.

Atlantis is flying for the 32nd time in 25 years and will carry a Russian docking and storage module named Rassvet -- Russian for "dawn." The 23-foot-long (7-meter-long) module shares the ship's payload bay with a cargo carrier holding six batteries, a spare communications antenna and a work platform for the station's robot arm.

Three spacewalks are planned during Atlantis' eight-day stay at the outpost to install the new batteries and antenna, as NASA prepares the $100 billion station for operations after shuttle retirement.

Sister ships Discovery and Endeavour are scheduled to make their final flights to the station in September and November to deliver a final load of spare parts and a $2 billion particle detector called the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer.

Upon its return to Earth, Atlantis will not immediately become a museum piece. Instead, it will be prepared for flight in case the last shuttle crew needs a rescue ship.

"The possibility exists to turn that into an actual launch -- the hardware is here. We're currently not doing that, but somebody could tell us to," Moses said.

If the shuttle is launched on time, landing would be targeted for May 26 in Florida.

(Editing by Jane Sutton and Cynthia Osterman)