14 DAY TRIAL // More than 10 years in the making, the massive project that is the International Space Station is now more than 98 percent complete. With the addition of the new Tranquility module, and the seven-windowed Cupola observations deck, NASA has flown its last great piece of equipment on the orbital lab. With Endeavor landing safely at the KSC this morning, only four shuttle flights remain until the American space agency retired its aging shuttle fleet, to make way for private space exploration companies, Space reports.
Endeavor is the “youngest” of the three remaining shuttles, and it has only one flight left, under the current NASA launch manifest. Its last mission is scheduled for July, and engineers at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) have already begun making preparations for STS-134. During its last ISS assembly flight, the spacecraft will deliver the third ExPRESS Logistics Carrier to the outpost, as well as the most expensive experiment ever flown in space, the European Space Agency's (ESA) Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS). This instrument is designed to hunt for dark matter, the elusive stuff whose effects keeps galaxies together by exerting a massive gravitational pull on regular matter.
“We'll go into that [STS-134] with our heads held high. It's a little bit [of a] sad note, but a great ending to a great mission and we're looking forward to the next one,” Mike Leinbach, the launch director for the shuttle, said after Endeavor touched down on the Shuttle Landing Facility runway, at 10:20 pm EST (0320 Monday UTC). The shuttle thus completed its 24th flight and the 130th shuttle mission since 1981, when the space planes began flying. Two vehicles were lost to accidents, Challenger in 1986 and Columbia in 2003, in both cases due to components damaged during lift-off.
But all flights taken by the shuttle have not been in vain. Since November 2000, when the ISS had only three rooms and accommodated just three astronauts, the facility has grown to the size of a football field, with 12 rooms and three airlocks currently available for use. Additionally, four docking ports for Russian spacecraft and one port for American shuttles are also available to connect it to the world below. During the next four shuttle flights, one by Endeavor, one by Atlantis, and two by Discovery, NASA will deliver all remaining components to complete the ISS, after about 11 years and more than $100 billion invested in it.
“Endeavour, my goodness, what a machine. She was perfect throughout the flight and we brought her back safe and sound thanks to Mission Control,” said STS-130 commander George Zamka after landing. “I hope we didn't beat it up too much, because we know that you're going to be turning it around one more time to fly it again,” added Kathryn Hire, a mission specialist for the current flight.