The space shuttle Endeavour landed at Kennedy Space Center tonight after a week long journey to the international space station. The nearly 6 million mile trip is one of the few to have been concluded with a spectacular night time landing. With six astronauts on board, the space shuttle was greeted with clear weather in Florida despite discouraging forecasts. This flight marks Endeavour’s 25th journey into space. The trip was fortunately an amazing success, with the crew members successfully making some upgrades to the international space station. The next flight out to space is slated for April.

Endeavour was completed in 1992 by NASA, meant to replace the Challenger shuttle that met its tragic demise (along with all 7 of its crew) in April of 1983 due to what was discovered to be a faulty o-ring. While this new shuttle has served as a reliable and competent replacement, it is slated to be decommissioned later this year. It will be replaced by NASA’s latest innovation, the Orion spacecraft. According to the current information made publicly available about this spacecraft, it is to be completed no later than 2014. Aerospace giant Lockheed Martin was awarded the contract to design and develop the spacecraft in August of 2006. Since drawing criticism from the Obama administration, the ultimate fate of the Orion remains to be seen.