Shuttle Endeavour launches for final mission (14 images)

Space Shuttle Endeavour STS-134 blasts off from the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center on May 16, 2011. This is the 25th and last flight of the Endeavour as NASA is retiring its shuttle fleet after 30 years. One more flight of Space Shuttle Atlantis is scheduled next month. UPI/Pat Benic

Space Shuttle Endeavour disappears into the clouds within seconds after liftoff at Kennedy Space Center on May 16, 2011. The second to last scheduled shuttle flight is commanded by Mark Kelly, the husband of Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who is recovering from an assassination attempt, but was at KSC to watch the liftoff. UPI/Pat Benic

Space Shuttle Endeavour STS-134 blasts off into the clouds from launch pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center on May 16, 2011. This is the 25th and last flight of the Endeavour as NASA is retiring its shuttle fleet after 30 years. One more flight of Space Shuttle Atlantis is scheduled next month. UPI/Pat Benic

NASA's space shuttle "Endeavour" launches on her twenty fifth and final mission (STS 134) from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center seconds after 8:56 am on May 16, 2011. Endeavour is carrying a crew of six on a fourteen day mission. Endeavour and her crew are set to deliver a physics module, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer as well as the Express Logistics Carrier #3 to equip the station with supplies for use after the shuttle program ends later this year. UPI/Joe Marino-Bill Cantrell