Endeavour astronauts start 1st of 4 spacewalks

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Following the delivery of Cargo taken with the US space shuttle Endeavor, the mission is now moving on to the next step. Two astronauts aboard the space shuttle will venture out in the first of their 4 spacewalks on a maintenance mission at the International Space Station.

This is Endeavor's last space mission. Docking has been successful led by mission commander Mark Kelly, marking the beginning of a 10-day-stay on the Space Station. Its cargo includes a 2 billion dollar Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, designed to evaluate cosmic rays for antimatter, dark matter, and other phenomena that cant be seen with a telescope. A batch of spare parts are also being delivered to help the Space Station fare after the shuttle program is retired.

The NASA program will end this summer after one more mission. The space program debuted on April 12th, 1981, with a test flight of Columbia. By the end of this year once the last spaceship retires, the United States will have spent an estimated 174 billion dollars on the shuttle program. During the years, the shuttles have carried dozens of satellites, planetary probes and other scientific instruments into orbit, including the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory. But there were also moments of disaster. On January 28th, 1986, the shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after liftoff, killing all seven crew members aboard. Disaster occurred again on February 1st, 2003, when Columbia disintegrated during re-entry because of damage from a piece of insulation that fell off during liftoff. In the 135th and final shuttle flight,Atlantis is scheduled for launch on June 28th this year. It will deliver a year's worth of supplies to the space station. NASA's nex! t progra m, which is still in the planning stages, is to send astronauts to asteroids and other destinations in the solar system.