UPDATE: Endeavour Lift Off Postponed

Update 4/29: POSTPONED: Endeavour launch will be no earlier than Monday at 11:33 p.m. PST. An issue arose in today’s launch scrub, NASA announced.http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/index.html

To commemorate this event, NASA Ames invites the community to witness history tomorrow Friday as the STS-134 space shuttle Endeavour launches for the last time at 12:47 p.m. PST. The live televised broadcast of the launch can be seen at the Exploration Center at NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, off the Moffett Field exit of Highway 101. Doors open at 10 a.m. and activities are planned before lift off.

The STS-134 mission is Endeavor's final scheduled flight and the second to last flight for the Space Shuttle Program. 

It is NASA's 134th shuttle mission, Endeavour's 25th flight and the 36th shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS). After Endeavour's scheduled landing on May 13, the shuttle would have travelled more than 100 million miles and spent 294 days in space.

During Endeavours' 11-day mission, the astronauts will deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) to the ISS, which is a particle physics detector that will search for unusual matter.

The mission will feature four spacewalks to perform maintenance, swap out experiments and transfer put an orbiter boom sensor system from the shuttle to the ISS.

Commander Mark Kelly will lead the six person the veteran crew, which includes Gregory H. Johnson, pilot; Michael Fincke, Greg Chamitoff, Andrew Feustel and European Space Agency's Roberto Vittori, all mission specialists.

Following the launch, students will have an opportunity to participate in a variety of hands-on educational activities.

With the exception of some proficiency training, Kelly had been on personal leave since Jan. 8 to care for his wife, U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was critically wounded in a Tucson, AZ, shooting.

Giffords has been given special permission to attend the launch. President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama will attend as well.