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FACTBOX: Highlights of space shuttle Endeavour's mission

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)



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