Space Shuttle Endeavour joined NASA's shuttle fleet in 1992 and quickly set a high mark of achievement and exploration.
The orbiter served as a service station on its first flight when its
crew rescued a stranded Intelsat 6 communications satellite.
On a later mission, it took a repair team up to the Hubble Space Telescope and saved the cutting-edge observatory.
Endeavour was the first shuttle to carry an American segment of the International Space Station into orbit and
played a vital role in several construction flights since.
In between, Endeavour deployed satellites for the United States and Japan,
carried into orbit the first African-American female astronaut,
Mae Jemison, and operated as a microgravity laboratory.
It is a record befitting a craft named for the exploration vessels of Captain James Cook and the crew of Apollo 15.
NASA ordered Endeavour's construction soon after the shuttle Challenger was lost in a launch accident in 1986.
Though identical to the rest of NASA's orbiter fleet, Endeavour was built
with a few upgrades in place, including a drag chute for landing.
Later modifications have been made to Endeavour, including a modernized set of displays known as a glass cockpit.
The ship began its last round of in-depth inspections and adaptations following a
2002 mission to the International Space Station.
Endeavour returned to space on mission STS-118 in August of 2007.
Endeavour is also currently set to fly the last space shuttle mission in 2010,
when it is slated to carry an experiment module to the orbiting laboratory.
The last orbiter to enter the fleet, Endeavour will also be the last to leave the space scene.
By the time it retires, Endeavour is expected to have conducted 26 missions in 18 years, including 13 flights to the space station.