In contrast, its modern day namesake is 78 tons, 122 feet in length and 78 feet wide. His Endeavour was small at about 368 tons, 100 feet in length and 20 feet wide. Bush in May 1989.Įndeavour's name was inspired by the 18th century sailing ship assigned to chart the South Pacific under British explorer Capt. The winner was announced by President George H.W. The NASA Orbiter-Naming Project received 6,154 entries, representing more than 70,000 students. NASA opened the competition with the provision the proposals were drawn from nautical tradition. "There was a little contest that decided how we're going to name it," recalled Kelly.Įndeavour was christened through a contest initiated by Congress in response to the concern by students over the loss of Challenger. Largely assembled from spare parts pre-fabricated during the development of Discovery and Atlantis, NASA's fifth orbiter, or OV-105, was completed in 1991. "It was decided that to build a new one would actually be more cost-effective to do, build a brand new orbiter, and that became Endeavour." "At the time the thought was, well, maybe we could modify Enterprise, which was the approach and landing test orbiter," said Kelly. After 25 flights, we will hopefully land here and then Endeavour is done with its service to the country," added Kelly. "We are going to take Endeavour out for a couple more, probably about five or six million more miles. Mark Kelly, commander of Endeavour's final mission, after arriving April 27 in Florida for the orbiter's last launch. "Since Endeavour's first flight to this flight, it's had a really outstanding career," said Capt. Now it is set to fly one last mission to the ISS to deliver a state-of-the-art experiment, a crowning achievement for an accomplished spacecraft. It also launched the first African-American woman and the first married couple. In the two decades since, Endeavour has left its mark on history, saving the Hubble Space Telescope, giving birth to the International Space Station (ISS), and completing a mission begun by the fallen shuttle it was built to replace.
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