On June 1, 2011, NASA's space
shuttle Endeavor touched down safely for the final time at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida
Endeavour was built as a
replacement for the shuttle Challenger, which was lost in the 1986 accident that also killed its seven-astronaut crew.
Congress authorized
the construction of Endeavour in 1987, and the orbiter first blasted off in 1992.
Its final launch
occurred on May 16, 2011, sending a six-member crew into orbit on NASA's STS-134 mission.
This last mission delivered
the Express Logistics Carrier-3 and the $1.1 billion Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer to the International Space Station.
Endeavour had many successful
missions during its run, one of the most famous being the start of construction on the ISS.