The US space shuttle began its re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere Friday. NASA announced Commander Rick Sturckow and Pilot Lee Archambault fired space shuttle Atlantis’ engines at 2:43 p.m. EDT to begin the descent for a 3:49 p.m. landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

The so-called "entry interface" occurred at about 133 kilometres above Earth's surface, with Atlantis rocketing at 27,000 kilometres an hour.

With Sturckow and Archambault at the controls, Atlantis descended at 3:49 p.m. to a smooth landing at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., concluding a successful assembly mission to the International Space Station.

Since it undocked from ISS, Atlantis passed three landing opportunities due to the rainy weather and thunderstorms on the normal landing strip at Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.

From Edward base, Atlantis will have to be transported to Cape Canaveral, an operation that would cost close to $1.7 million.

Atlantis launched June 8 and arrived at the ISS on June 10. While at the orbital outpost, the crew installed the Starboard 3 and 4 truss segment and conducted four spacewalks to activate it. The next mission, STS-118, is set to be launched in August.

On board of Atlantis is astronaut Sunita Williams, the Indian-American returning home from a women's record of six months on the International Space Station.