NEW ORLEANS .

NEW ORLEANS -- At NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, Associate Administrator for Space Operations Bill Gerstenmaier and a Michoud employee discuss the progress of the Space Shuttle Program's last external fuel tank, ET-122, as it is being transported from the facility to the Pegasus Barge. The tank will travel 900 miles by sea to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida secured aboard the barge, offloaded and moved to Kennedy's Vehicle Assembly Building where it will be integrated to space shuttle Endeavour for the STS-134 mission to the International Space Station.

The tank, which is the largest element of the space shuttle stack, was damaged during Hurricane Katrina in August 2005 and restored to flight configuration by Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company employees. STS-134, targeted to launch Feb. 2011, currently is scheduled to be the last mission in the Space Shuttle Program. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett