U.S. Army Captain Michael Kelvington, commander of the Battle company, 1-508 Parachute Infantry battalion, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, bows next to remains of Gulam Dostager, a member of Afghan Local Police who was killed in the blast of an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) during the joint Tor Janda (Black Flag in Pashtu) operation, in Zahri district of Kandahar province, southern Afghanistan May 25, 2012.  REUTERS/Shamil Zhumatov  (AFGHANISTAN - Tags: MILITARY CIVIL UNREST CONFLICT TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY)

Reuters Photojournalism

Our day's top images, in-depth photo essays and offbeat slices of life. See the best of Reuters photography.  See more | Photo caption 

Members of the U.S. Navy Blue Angels fly over the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan as part of the 25th annual Fleet Week celebration in New York, May 23, 2012.  REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz (UNITED STATES - Tags: MILITARY ANNIVERSARY TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY)

Fleet Week

The U.S. Navy takes Manhattan for a week.  Slideshow 

Photo

The SpaceX mission

A privately owned unmanned rocket blasts off on a mission to be the first commercial flight to the International Space Station.  Slideshow 

FACTBOX: Highlights of space shuttle Endeavour's mission

Related Topics

Fri Nov 14, 2008 8:22pm EST

(Reuters) - The U.S. space shuttle Endeavour, carrying seven astronauts, was launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Friday on a 15-day mission to the International Space Station.

Here are some of the mission highlights:

* Endeavour will deliver a new crew member to the space station. Sandra Magnus, 44, who flew her first space mission aboard shuttle Atlantis in October, 2002, will replace Greg Chamitoff aboard the orbiting outpost.

* The shuttle will carry about 32,000 pounds (14,520 kg) of equipment to the space station including two new sleeping chambers, a second toilet, a refrigerator, exercise gear and a new water purification system needed to expand the station's crew from three members to six.

* The new water purification system will allow astronauts to recycle urine and turn moisture from the air into drinkable water, a necessity for long-duration spaceflights of the future.

* Four spacewalks are scheduled. The astronauts will begin repairs on a balky rotary joint on the space station's truss that allows power-generating solar arrays to rotate toward the sun.

Source: NASA

(Reporting by Jim Loney and Irene Klotz; Editing by Chris Wilson)

Comments (0)
This discussion is now closed. We welcome comments on our articles for a limited period after their publication.