segment, the Unity node, in December 1998. Įndeavour has visited the International Space Station 12 times in 25 flights, and delivered and attached the station's first U.S. The orbiter has travelled more than 110 million miles (177 million kilometers) over the course of its spaceflying career. The STS-134 flight, which launched May 16, is Endeavour's 25th and final mission before it is retired. There are still some milestones ahead of us where we've got to continue to stay focused and continue to deal with things as they come, but the performance up until now has been just outstanding."Įndeavour is NASA's newest space shuttle, born out of the tragic loss of the shuttle Challenger in 1986.
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"When I think back to the last couple of years of missions, we've been very fortunate with the performance of the vehicles on orbit. "The performance has been nothing short of outstanding," Cain said. This may be Endeavour's final flight, but the orbiter's performance so far has been near flawless, mission managers said. If bad weather or other issues prevent a landing at Kennedy Space Center, Endeavour could be waved off to land at backup runways at Edwards Air Force Base in California or at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico. After that, the next available opportunities for Endeavour to land would come on Thursday (June 2). If the shuttle misses the first opportunity, the second window opens at 4:11 a.m. NASA has two chances to land Endeavour in Florida on Wednesday. EDT (0355 May 30 GMT), after spending 11 days, 17 hours and 41 minutes parked at the orbiting outpost. Teams are going to continue to watch it and talk about it today."Įndeavour undocked from the space station Friday night at 11:55 p.m. It's kind of an intermittent indication that we're seeing.
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The next time it ran the self test, it turned out nominal. "Looking at the fuel cell performance in real time, the fuel cell was performing great. "We think it's really just an issue with this performance monitor box," lead shuttle flight director Gary Horlacher said. Despite the indications, flight controllers verified that the fuel cells were performing as expected and think the issue is with the monitor, rather than the fuel cells themselves. (Image credit: NASA)Īfter Endeavour undocked from the station and completed two victory laps around of the massive complex, a monitor that tracks the performance of the shuttle's fuel cells was intermittently failing the system's self-tests. The six-man crew of space shuttle Endeavour discusses the last flight of the shuttle with reporters for one last time on before returning to Earth.