Endeavour soars through cloudy skies on its final mission
It was 8:56 Eastern Standard Time on Monday morning as a crowd of approximately half a million people watched as the space shuttle Endeavour took off for its final space mission. Endeavour was scheduled to launch April 29th but was delayed due to electrical problems. Today’s launch was text book perfect with each component working as it should. The crew, commanded by Captain Mark E. Kelly, was eager to begin their latest objective which is to install a two billion dollar piece of equipment called an Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer at the international space station. This is a magnet, huge and doughnut shaped. It is designed to sort through the many billions of cosmic particles in space to find any evidence of what is termed “dark matter”, thought to be pervasive in the universe.
Captain Kelly is the husband of Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords who was seriously wounded by a gunman in Tucson Arizona back in January 8, 2011. She is recovering nicely and was able to fly to Florida to observe the launch. Other crew members include the shuttle pilot Greg Johnson and four specialists: Mike Fincke, Drew Feustel, Roberto Vittori, and Greg Chamitoff. This is the 25th flight for Endeavour having been built as a replacement for Challenger which exploded back in 1986 shortly after takeoff. Most likely Endeavour will be sent to a science museum in LA California to be placed on display. There is only to be one final mission for NASA and that will be on the shuttle Atlantis scheduled for July of this year.
This latest shuttle mission includes an ambitious slate including four space walks, delivery of a crate filled with spare parts, and miscellaneous maintenance tasks along with delivering the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer. It was thought near impossible that the Spectrometer would be flown into space due to its size and weight, mostly comprised of the magnet. At eight tons and three feet high plus three feet in diameter it creates an enormous magnetic field which should deflect cosmic particles attempting to pass through. The hope is the magnet will work as a filter and aid in the discovery of new space particles.
