STS-134: Space shuttle Endeavour

With its final space mission in the history books, the shuttle Endeavour begins preparations for a life of leisure as a museum showpiece.

Space shuttle Endeavour’s crew is wrapping up final preparations for its planned landing at 2:35 a.m. EDT Wednesday at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Astronauts Drew Feustel and Greg Chamitoff completed a six-hour, 19-minute spacewalk at 9:29 a.m. EDT. They successfully installed antennas for the External Wireless Communication system, routing cables, setting up the antenna, installing handrails, and connecting power cables

While the pontiff is expected to greet all the crew, the Vatican says he will chat in particular with the two Italian astronauts aboard, Paolo Nespoli and Roberto Vittori.

Endeavour's astronauts accomplished the No. 1 objective of their mission Thursday, installing a $2 billion cosmic ray detector on the International Space Station to scan the invisible universe for years to come.

Endeavour — making its final journey and the next-to-last flight of NASA's shuttle era — docked with the space station as the two vessels soared more than 200 miles above the planet, near Chile.

Still recovering from a devastating wound to the head, the Arizona congresswoman was at Kennedy Space Center on Monday to witness Mark Kelly and his five crewmates blast off and head to the International Space Station.

The six experienced astronauts making space shuttle Endeavour's final voyage are as tight as brothers after nearly two years together as a crew and the tragic shooting of the commander's congresswoman wife.

The event generated the kind of excitement seldom seen on Florida's Space Coast on such a grand scale — despite a delay of more than two weeks from the original launch date because of an electrical problem.

It will be the second attempt to send Endeavour on its final voyage. On April 29, an electrical problem prevented the shuttle from blasting off.

The next-to-last space shuttle flight has been delayed again, this time to at least the middle of May for extra electrical tests.

NASA's youngest space shuttle should have flown to the International Space Station last Friday. But a heater malfunction halted the countdown.

Technicians at NASA Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39A in Florida continue testing various systems inside space shuttle Endeavour associated with a newly installed power distribution box.

The repair work is taking longer than expected.