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Here is a web item. Will follow tomorrow with a story based on interview.

PARIS-- NASA confirmed to its international space station partners on Jan. 26 that it plans to return the U.S. space shuttle to flight this year with test launches in the late spring and late summer and to resume assembly of the orbital complex starting with a shuttle flight in December.

Meeting in Montreal, the heads of the five space agencies building the station -- representing the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada -- said they were confident the station's assembly would be completed by the end of the decade despite the more than two-year shutdown of shuttle activity due to since the February 2003 Columbia accident. NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe said modifying the remaining shuttle fleet has already cost NASA about $1.5 billion.

At a press briefing following the meeting, the five agency heads stressed their commitment to the space station, the costs of which have have risen for all involved which has added to all the partners' bills because of the facility's dependence on the shuttle for construction. Europe and Japan are still awaiting shuttle launches of for their respective main main space station laboratories aboard space shuttlesto be attached to the station, a job for which the shuttle is needed.

O'Keefe, attending his last heads-of-agenciesy meeting before he leaves NASA before leaving the U.S. agency, said the station's continued operation for in the past two years despite the shuttle fleet's grounding is proof of the station partnership's resilience. He said NASA is committed to delivering its partners' hardware to the station before the shuttle is retired. He repeated the U.S. goal of taking the shuttle out of service in 2010 after performing "the fewest number of flights" as needed to meet NASA's obligations to station construction.

O'Keefe said NASA will use its station experience in developing its space exploration program, which focuses on the Moon moon and Mars rather than on low Earth orbit.

Russian Federal Space Agency Director-General Anatoli Perminov said Russia agrees that the station is useful as a laboratory for longer-range space exploration. But he said any manned missions to Mars could occur only after continued extensive work in low Earth orbit on facilities including the international space station.

Speaking in Russian with English translation, Perminov said Russia's immediate goal after the international space station is a manned presence on the Moon. He said other space stations, also in low Earth orbit, may be needed before enough experience is gained to permit sending humans astronauts to Mars.