Government IT: Endeavour`s Historic Final Mission to Space
With the successful return to Earth June 1, the space shuttle Endeavour, the youngest spacecraft in NASA's soon-to-be mothballed shuttle program, has completed its last mission to space. Space shuttle Atlantis now is about half way complete with its move from NASA Kennedy Space Center's Vehicle Assembly Building to Launch Pad 39A. That will be the last launch for the space shuttle program. On their final mission, the crew members of Endeavour brought important spare parts to the ISS (International Space Station). Endeavour was NASA's fifth and final space shuttle orbiter to join the fleet at Kennedy Space Center. Endeavour also is known inside the space agency by its designation Orbiter Vehicle-105, or OV-105. Among Endeavour's missions was the first to include four spacewalks, and then the first to include five. Its STS-67 mission set a length record of almost two full days longer than any shuttle mission before it. Its airlock is the only one to have seen three spacewalkers exit through it for a single spacewalk. And in its cargo bay, the first two pieces of the ISS were joined together.