Shuttle swan song delayed to 2011

Source: MSNBC.com

Managers of NASA's space shuttle program are seeking a shift in the launch schedule that would delay the fleet's final launch until February 2011 at the earliest.

The schedule shift would have the shuttle Discovery to lift off on Oct. 29 instead of Sept. 16, and schedule Endeavour's flight for no earlier than Feb. 28, 2011, rather than in November as previously scheduled. Managers asked for the shift this afternoon in a "Change of Launch" request issued to all invoved in those two flights, according to Jay Barbree, NBC News' Cape Canaveral correspondent. Discovery is to deliver the Italian-built Leonardo logistics module to the International Space Station and install it as a permanent addition to the complex. Endeavour will bring up the $1.5 billion Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, an international physics experiment.

"These two flights will be the last for the space shuttle fleet unless a plan to launch space shuttle Atlantis on a full-up supply run a year from now is approved," Barbree says.

NASA is already getting Atlantis ready as a backup rescue shuttle in case something goes wrong during Endeavour's mission. Assuming that Atlantis isn't needed for an unprecedented rescue, NASA has been talking about using that shuttle and a minimal crew to deliver more supplies to the station in mid-2011. Members of Congress are likely to be amenable to that plan.



Read more: http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/06/22/4544758-shuttle-swan-song-delayed-to-2011

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I'd like to see it delayed indefinitely! As a child of the Cold War (I was in my mother's womb during the Cuban missile crisis!), I still don't trust the Russians, regardless of their recently-discovered capitalism!

Robert DAH Bruce

Maybe its time for US, and maybe even for others to build an space shuttle NG, so the future for the manned space program are not all in the hand of the russians... I for one would not mind happend to se a space shuttle NG, with new engignes, new tec and a far better shape than the space shuttle as we know it;):. Face it, space shuttle IS an old device now, and the ages is shown even for them who dosen't wont to se it.. They have been making a good ride for theyr time, but the hour is up, and it is in need of been replaced by others newer, more modern equipment..

But of course, that cost a lot of money, and for the moment US dosen't have a lot of money to spend of space exploration - even tho cutting half the Pentagon budget, and ending at least one of the wars in the middle east should do the trick...

I for one would be sad when the last shuttle is down again, and the shuttle program is no more active.. Was a little kid when the first shuttle was lounched in 1982, and it is sad to think that next year, the program wil end.. And no more shuttles wil raise to the air to do what they do best..

Diclotican

Diclotican..