Shuttle Endeavour's Final Roll Out
CAPE CANAVERAL (CBS4) – It was a long, slow trek, but the space shuttle Endeavour has arrived at the launch pad at NASA's Kennedy Space Center ahead of next month's planned launch to the International Space Station.
The shuttle reached Launch Pad 39A early Friday morning following its 2.4 mile trek on the crawler-transporter from the Vehicle Assembly Building.
Running 24 hours late due to stormy weather, the Endeavour rollout came one day after sister ship Discovery landed at KSC on its 39th and final flight.
Endeavour and six astronauts are scheduled to blast off at 7:48 p.m. April 19.
The mission commander is Mark Kelly, the husband of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz. Giffords was shot in the head and critically injured in a Jan. 8 assassination attempt that killed six and wounded more than a dozen others in Tucson
By all accounts, Giffords is making a remarkable recovery, and Kelly has said his wife will be at KSC for the launch.
The crew also includes four mission specialists: Greg Chamitoff, Andrew Feustel, Michael Fincke and Roberto Vittori of the European Space Agency.
The astronauts aim to deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer to the International Space Station. The spectrometer is a large particle physics experiment package that is expected to shed light on the nature and evolution of the universe.
Four spacewalks are planned during the flight.
The space shuttle fleet will be retired after two more flights this year to the ISS. These remaining missions will focus on outfitting the International Space Station with spare parts to last it well beyond the shuttle era.
After the shuttles are grounded, Russian Soyuz spacecraft and international unmanned cargo vessels will deliver crew and supplies to the orbiting outpost.
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