Endeavour prepares for final mission

The space shuttle Endeavour isgetting ready to fly for the final time.

When the orbiter blasts off for a 14-day mission from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, it will carry a six-member crew to the International Space Station.

Leading the crew will be Commander Mark Kelly, whose participation in the mission had been uncertain after the shooting of his wife, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, in Arizona in January. Giffords is recovering from her injuries,but flew to Florida for the launch.

Kelly says shuttle crew members havea lot of goals for their time in space.

"We've got a whole list of mission objectives, probably 30 things on the list, but the big objective is to get the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) installed on the outside of the space station," he said in a posting on the NASA website.

AMS is one of the most expensive things flown by the space shuttle, said Kelly.

Greg Johnson, who is piloting the shuttle, saidhe won't be making any space walks, but he will be helping Kelly.

The mission will include four space walks, each lasting about six hours.

Astronaut Andrew Feustel will be the lead space walker, with Michael Fincke, Roberto Vittori of the European Space Agency and Greg Chamitoff also going outside the shuttle.

According to NASA's mission summary, the AMS is a particle physics detector, designed to search for various types of unusual matter by measuring cosmic rays.

NASA says AMS weighs about 6,800 kilograms, consumes more than2,000 watts of power and has 600 microprocessors.It was built in collaboration with 600 people in 56 institutions from 16 countries.

Endeavour's mission, labelled STS-134, is its last, and the second-last for NASA's space shuttle program.

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