CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - The astronaut husband of Gabrielle Giffords, the Arizona congresswoman critically wounded in an assassination attempt last month, will be aboard space shuttle Endeavour when it lifts off on its final mission in April, NASA said on Friday.
The U.S. space agency confirmed that Mark Kelly will serve as Endeavour's commander, after taking leave from training when Giffords was shot in the head outside a grocery store in Tucson, Arizona, on January 8.
"He is a veteran shuttle commander and knows well the demands of the job," Peggy Whitson, chief of NASA's Astronaut Office said in a statement. "I know I speak for all of NASA in saying 'welcome back.'"
Giffords survived the shooting by accused Tucson gunman Jared Loughner, but six people, including a federal judge, were killed and 12 others were wounded.
Kelly, 46, had weighed whether to pull out of Endeavour's two-week mission to the International Space Station and a back-up commander had already been named.
But he was apparently encouraged to go ahead with the mission because of his wife's remarkable recovery so far.
"I'm looking forward to rejoining my STS-134 crew members and finishing our training for the mission," Kelly said in a statement, using NASA's abbreviation for the Endeavour flight, which is targeted for launch on April 19.
"We have been preparing for more than 18 months," he said. "I appreciate the confidence that my NASA management has in me and the rest of my space shuttle crew."
The flight is expected to be Endeavour's last voyage and the next to last for the entire space shuttle program.
The U.S. space agency will be retiring its three remaining space shuttles within about six months primarily because of high operating costs and to free up funds to develop spaceships that can travel farther than the International Space Station, which orbits about 220 miles (355 km) above Earth.
(Reporting by Irene Klotz; Writing by Tom Brown; Editing by Vicki Allen)
