NASA sets date for final shuttle mission

The space shuttle Atlantis lifts off from Cape Canaveral on Feb. 7, 2008. (CBC/NASA TV) NASA has tentatively set the final space shuttle mission for May 31, 2010, four months before the shuttle fleet is scheduled to retire. NASA has 10 missions remaining for the fleet, which President George W. Bush ordered to retire by Sept. 30, 2010. The schedule, announced late Monday and reported in the Houston Chronicle, includes five flights this year, five in 2009 and three in 2010. Some members of Congress want to add at least one more mission, to carry the $1.6-billion US Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer to the space station. The mission was one of about a dozen cancelled after Columbia broke apart upon re-entry in 2003. NASA told a Senate panel on June 23 that it anticipates losing 3,000 to 4,000 jobs at its launching site once the space... [read full story]