Last Mission for US Space Shuttle Discovery
The US shuttle Discovery took off yesterday from the Kennedy Space Centre for the last time as it embarks on an 11 day mission to deliver supplies to the International Space Station (ISS).
The mission is the last for this particular shuttle after 39 trips into space. It was launched in 1984 and has travelled an estimated 143 million miles.
The other 2 shuttles, Endeavour and Atlantis, are to take their final flights within the coming months and after that all the US shuttles will face permanent retirement to museums.
What happens after that remains to be finalised although the current plan sees US astronauts catching a lift on the Russian Soyuz rockets.
NASA can then concentrate it’s efforts on the development of the Space Launch System which plans to send astronauts far beyond the current shuttle range.
Congress has set a deadline of 2016 for the introduction of the new system, whether this happens or not is up in the air and one of the reasons that NASA wanted to retire it’s current shuttle fleet.
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