Injured US leader's husband to command Endeavour

Mark Kelly, the astronaut husband of United States Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was gravely wounded in the Tucson shooting rampage, will command the flight of space shuttle Endeavour in April.

Announcing this at a press conference in Houston, Kelly, 46, said he will resume training for the mission at Johnson Space Centre from Monday. His participation in the 'next-to-the last' space shuttle mission in April had been in doubt since his wife, Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, was shot in the head outside a Tucson supermarket on January 8 in a gun attack that left six other people dead. He has been at her beside since the shooting.

Kelly said his wife would be 'very comfortable' with his decision to go back into space and he expects her to be at his launch in April. Without delving into too many details, Kelly said he knows she supports his choice to fly.

"I know her very well and she would be very comfortable with the decision that I made," he said. Kelly said that he got the ball rolling on this decision about a week ago, when he informed Peggy Whitson, chief of the Astronaut Office at the space centre, and Brent Jett, chief of the Flight Crew Operations Directorate, that he wanted to fly.

Whitson and Jett then had Kelly do a few test runs this past week to see if he could balance a training schedule with the care that Giffords, 40, needed, and that was successful. In deciding to return to the mission, Kelly said he took into account Giffords' progress as well as her rigorous rehab schedule.

She is busy with speech, occupational and physical therapy from 8 am to 6 pm seven days a week, Kelly said. He declined to elaborate specifically on Giffords' current condition, except to say that "she's improving rather quickly" and that her progress is "better than 99 per cent of the other people that doctors see with this kind of injury."

Kelly hopes that Giffords will be in attendance for the April 19 launch.

"There really shouldn't be any reason that she can't go to the launch," he said. Kelly said he has the blessing of Giffords' family as well as his own.

While on board the space shuttle, Kelly will have access to e-mails and NASA will likely coordinate one video chat session during the 14-day mission, he said.