The Last Days of Space Shuttle

02 Aug 2008

The final flight in NASA's space shuttle program will take off on 31 May 2010, four months before the fleet is retired after 30 years of service, the agency said on Tuesday.

The last mission is one of 10 flights that NASA has planned for Endeavour, Discovery and Atlantis before they are taken out of service in September 2010.

Two of these are planned for this year ? on 8 October, Atlantis heads on a service mission to the Hubble Space

Telescope, and on 10 November, Endeavour will deliver supplies and service parts to the International Space Station. Another five flights are scheduled for 2009 and three for 2010, said NASA spokesperson Rob Navias.

Endeavour will take off on the final flight of the shuttle program, which began with the launch of Columbia from the Kennedy Space Centre at Cape Canaveral in Florida on 12 April 1981.