This morning the Space Shuttle Endeavour landed safely at the end of its last mission.

The Space Shuttle Endeavour was built following the Challenger tragedy to replace the Shuttle destroyed in 1986 during the start of a mission with the death of the whole crew.

The name of the new Shuttle was chosen through a national contest among American students. The proposals included ​​not only the name but also the history behind it and an explaination of the reasons for using that name for a Space Shuttle.

The most popular proposal was Endeavour, in honor of the British ship HMS Endeavour, which was used by explorer James Cook on his first voyage between 1768 and 1771. The command module of Apollo 15 was called Endeavour as well and its name had already been chosen in honor of Captain Cook’s ship. This is why this name is written with the British spelling and not the American one which doesn’t include the “u”.

The first Endeavour’s flight began on May 7, 1992 on a mission in which the Intelsat VI satellite was repositioned and there was extravehicular activity for three men.

During the later missions several activities related to the International Space Station were carried out bringing several new modules, equipment and supplies of various kinds. On several occasions astronauts were brought to the ISS or brought back to Earth.

The Endeavour also performed various missions which included scientific experiments and also a service mission to the Hubble Space Telescope.

Over the years ​​several upgrades to the shuttle Endeavour were made, also to improve safety following the tragedy that led to the destruction of the Space Shuttle Columbia.

Originally the last of the 25 Endeavour’s missions was scheduled ​​in 2010 but the plans for the last Space Shuttles missions were modified.

Unfortunately on March 14, 2011 NASA engineer James Vanover committed suicide by jumping from the launch tower on which the Endeavour was being prepared for the mission. James Vanover was depressed because he was about to lose his job after almost thirty years, like many other workers at the Kennedy Space Center.

After several technical problems the Shuttle Endeavour took off on May 16, 2011 for its last mission, with the official code STS-134. The Shuttle commander on that occasion was Mark Kelly, husband of Representative Gabrielle Giffords, who was seriously wounded in January 2011 when a man shot nineteen people killing six of them. Another commander was ready to replace Mark Kelly but luckily the improvements in his wife’s conditions allowed him to lead the mission and Representative Giffords to go to the Kennedy Space Center to watch the takeoff.

Now the glorious Space Shuttle Endeavour is being retired and will be exhibited at the California Science Center. Now there’s only the last mission of the Shuttle Atlantis scheduled for July left to close an era.

Recently new projects for future space missions were proposed but after the latest disappointments caused by cuts to previous projects I’ll wait to see a new spaceship take off before getting excited. Let’s hope that in future we won’t have to look back and think that we have entered a period of decline.