NASA Sets Date For Final Shuttle Mission

HOUSTON (AP) – NASA says the final space shuttle mission is tentatively set for May 31, 2010, four months before the shuttle fleet is to retire.

NASA has 10 missions remaining for the shuttle fleet, which President Bush ordered to retire by Sept. 30, 2010. The schedule announced today includes five flights this year, five in 2009 and three in 2010.

The Houston Chronicle reports a bipartisan effort is under way in Congress to add at least one more mission, to carry the $1.6 billion Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer to the space station. The mission was one of about a dozen canceled after space shuttle Columbia broke apart upon re-entry in 2003.

Once the shuttle retires, work will focus on the Ares rocket and Orion capsule that will be used to return astronauts to the moon.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)