CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - The space shuttle Atlantis blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Friday on NASA's third-to-last shuttle mission to the International Space Station.

Atlantis roared off the launch pad at 2:20 p.m., carrying six astronauts on a trip to deliver a Russian research and docking module to the space station. NASA plans to end the shuttle program later this year after Atlantis' sister ships Discovery and Endeavour make their final flights.

(Reporting by Jane Sutton, Editing by Pascal Fletcher)