NASA plans to end era of shuttle by mid-2010
The space shuttle era may end as soon as mid-2010, NASA said yesterday as the agency announced its final planned fight in a program almost three decades old.
The orbiter Endeavour is slated to lift off May 31, 2010, for the space station, carrying a porch-like structure that will support scientific experiments in the vacuum of space, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said in statement.
NASA is working to finish construction on the orbiting outpost, which is about two-thirds built. Shuttle flights are also planned for Oct. 8 and Nov. 10 this year, followed by five flights in 2009 and a total of three in 2010.
President Bush has ordered the fleet be retired by the end of September 2010.
He's heeding the advice of a safety board that urged replacing the aging ships after the 2003 accident that destroyed the shuttle Columbia during reentry and killed all seven astronauts on board.
At the same time, the Republican president ordered NASA to pursue a new mission: a manned return to the moon and an eventual journey to Mars. Lockheed-Martin Corp. is building a spacecraft, called the Orion, whose first flight is planned for 2015. NASA is aiming for a 2020 return to the moon aboard Orion.
During the five-year gap in spaceflight, the United States will pay Russia as much as $2.8 billion to ferry American astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station.
Lawmakers have proposed at least one extra shuttle flight beyond NASA's 10 scheduled launches.
It would deliver the $1.6 billion Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer to the station.
The White House has opposed the idea.
