The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced the schedule for the agency’s 2009/2010 activities, which will involve ten shuttle missions before the shuttle fleet reaches its retirement age set for September 30, 2010 by President Bush in 2004.

The last flight is set for May 31, 2010 and the shuttle will launch from the Kennedy Space Center. The extra four months will give NASA’s scientists room to reschedule the flights in the event of bad weather conditions, without the stress of stepping over the deadline.

The schedule notes five space station assembly missions for 2009, set for February 12 with Discovery, May 16 with Endeavour, July 30 with Atlantis, October 15 with Discovery again and December 10 once more with Endeavour. The missions’ objectives will range from delivering the final component of the Japanese Kibo Laboratory, to upgrade Europe’s Columbus lab and even taking care of the station’s stability by transporting up two spare gyroscopes.

The last three shuttle missions, which will take care of the transport for some large spare parts needed on the International Space Station (ISS), have been announced for February 11, April 8 and May 31 of 2010.

For 2008, NASA only plans two more lift-offs. The first will take place on October 8, with Atlantis going on a repair and upgrade mission for the Hubble Space Telescope and the second, set for November 10, will send Endeavour on a re-supply mission to the ISS.

There is a chance that an eleventh mission will be included in 2010’s flights if the currently set schedule will not be pushed forward too much, as the $1.6 billion Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer must be carried to the space station.