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Published online 8 July 2005 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news050704-14
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Beyond the space shuttle
Successors wait in the wings for the shuttles' retirement in 2010.
Discovery's return to flight marks the beginning of the end for the space-shuttle fleet, which is expected to retire in five years' time.
After the Columbia shuttle disintegrated in 2003, the investigation board recommended that, before 2010, NASA should test every single component in its fleet to the standard of completely new vehicles.
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