NASA’s space shuttle Atlantis is all set to blast off from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Friday to accomplish remaining tasks at the International Space Station.

Atlantis will mark end of NASA’s 30 years of space adventures in which the space agency wings spaceships into orbit.

The shuttle workforce has already dropped from around 17,000 to 7,000 workers over the past recent years. Last year, US President Barrack Obama scrapped plans to return astraunouts to the moon.

Those last 7,000 jobs are coming under axe after the end of the space shuttle program.

Speaking on the topic, NASA's Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel Chairman Joseph W. Dyer said, "The downsizing has been well-managed and has achieved an acceptable level of risk.”

The American space agency acknowledges the hard effects of the program’s imminent end. The agency has taken several steps such as retention bonuses for skilled workers, perks such as travel benefits along with safety drills.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said that NASA will now focus on bigger projects like sending humans to Mars.