Shuttle Endeavor set for lift-off By Hope Wilkos, Writer/Blogger
Photo Credit: CNN and Sun Sentinel
All systems are go for the May 16th, Monday morning, final launch of Space Shuttle Endeavor from Kennedy Space Center. The shuttle is set to take off at 8:56 A.M. ET. All pre-flight checks have yielded positive results. Weather appears that it will cooperate as well although there is a 30% chance that crosswinds or low cloud cover could force a delay.
While the mission on April 29th attracted just over 700,000 viewers at Cape Canaveral including President Obama before it was scrubbed due to a heating issue, tomorrow there are estimated to be close to 500,000 people on hand for the historical final lift-off.
Commander of this mission is Mark Kelly. His wife, U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Arizona, who has been undergoing rehabilitation for a gunshot wound to the head, is expected to be on hand to support her husband.
There will be a six member crew carrying an Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer with a cost of $2 billion. Once it is installed on the Space Station, it is hopeful that it will catch and analyze cosmic rays and particles from space which should shed some insight into the origins and makeup of the universe. Endeavor will also carry equipment and supplies to keep the space station going until 2020 at which time it will be decommissioned.
Endeavor will touch back down on Earth on June 1st while Shuttle Atlantis makes its way to the launch pad for its final space mission in the June-July timeframe.
These historic events are also marked with sadness as this is the end to the 30 year space program and what it stood for.
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