Space History Photo: STS-45 Landing

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Sunrise casts a rosy glow over the parked orbiter Atlantis after a successful flight. (Image credit: NASA.)

In this historic photo from the U.S. space agency, the sun rises the morning of April 2, 1992, casting a rosy glow over a steller performer, the orbiter Atlantis parked on Runway 33 of the Shuttle Landing Facility. Atlantis touched down at 6:23:6 a.m. EST, completing a highly successful flight that was extended by a day to further the scientific research being performed on the Atmospheric Laboratory for Applications and Science-1 (ATLAS-1) payload. On board OV-104 for Mission STS-45 was a crew of seven.

Each weekday, SPACE.com looks back at the history of spaceflight through photos (archive).

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The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is the U.S. government agency in charge of the civilian space program as well as aeronautics and aerospace research. Founded in 1958, NASA is a civilian space agency aimed at exploring the universe with space telescopes,  satellites, robotic spacecraft, astronauts and more. The space agency has 10 major centers based across the U.S. and launches robotic and crewed missions from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral Florida. It's astronaut corps is based at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. To follow NASA's latest mission, follow the space agency on Twitter or any other social channel, of visit: nasa.gov.