Final night flight for trusty Endeavour

by Stevie Smith - Jan 28 2010, 11:56

The stalwart space shuttle fleet may soon be split and sold to educational institutions and museums but NASA isn’t quite finished with its long-serving orbital vehicles. Moreover, the U.S. space administration has this week confirmed that Endeavour will blast towards the International Space Station (ISS) this coming February.

Marking the shuttle fleet’s final night launch, and expected to be the first of five missions ahead of its official decommissioning at the end of 2010, the Endeavour is scheduled to depart the Kennedy Space Center just before 0500 (EST) on February 07.

The mission itself will last for 13 days and will see the shuttle tasked with delivering the final portion of the space station’s U.S. crew quarters. While aboard the ISS, members of Endeavour’s flight crew will also embark on three spacewalks to assist in the installation process of the shuttle’s valuable payload.

According to NASA, which has been attempting to drum up buyer interest in its aging fleet, the Endeavour, Discovery and Atlantis will be retired before the close of the year and attached to purchase prices of around $29 million USD each.

If you have that kind of petty cash just lying about the place, and your garage is big enough to hold a space shuttle, then drop NASA a line. But be quick, the Discovery has already been earmarked for inclusion at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington.

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