Return to flight

last updated 8 January 2015

Cape Canaveral, Fla.

NASA has announced it plans to launch a space shuttle in May, the first such flight since the shuttle Columbia disintegrated as it returned to Earth in 2003. All seven astronauts aboard were killed. The next mission, aboard the shuttle Atlantis, has suffered repeated delays, as engineers have struggled to meet tighter safety requirements. The latest troubles came when two summer hurricanes battered Kennedy Space Center, on Florida’s east coast, where the shuttles are assembled. Critics have said the shuttle fleet is old and unsafe, and should be scrapped. Two flights out of 113 have ended in disaster. But NASA officials say the remaining three shuttles are still reliable and useful, and they have scheduled another 28 missions before the fleet is to be retired.