Launch set for Monday 16th

Nearly one month later, the space shuttle Endeavour is finally set to launch into space for the final time.

The crew from Endeavour's final mission will launch into space on Monday May 16, nearly a month from its original launch date. It was first delayed 10 days because of a scheduling conflict with a Russian spacecraft. Following that delay, it was pushed back indefinitely hours before the April 29 launch because of a problem with the heating auxiliary power unit.

It's finally ready to launch and the countdown is officially under way, as of 7 a.m. eastern time on Friday morning. The crew, which arrived at the Kennedy Space Center on Thursay, woke up at 1 am eastern on Friday to continue preparations for the Monday launch. According to NASA, everything is on schedule and there have been no additional setbacks since the heating problem was fixed over the past few weeks.

"I'm really proud of our teams working so hard over the last couple of weeks," said NASA test director Spaulding. "All the teams here at Kennedy and all the other centers have done an outstanding job to get us ready for this launch on this historic and final flight of space shuttle Endeavour."

The weather for Monday calls for 70 percent chance of acceptable conditions at launch time. There may be storm disturbance around the time the rotating service structure is set to be rolled back on Sunady, but other than that, there seems to be nothing standing in the way of a successful final launch for Endeavour.