THE HUSBAND OF THE US Congresswoman who was shot in the head in an attempted assassination last month will return to his training to lead a NASA space mission.

Astronaut Mark Kelly had been training for the mission for about 18 months before taking leave when his wife was shot and seriously injured on 8 January.

Six people were killed in the incident, when a lone shooter opened fire outside a supermarket in Tucson, Arizona, during a public event hosted by Giffords.

Yesterday, NASA confirmed that Kelly would resume his training as commander of the Endeavour’s final mission into space.

Kelly said he was looking forward to rejoining his mission colleagues and said they would be “ready to deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) to the International Space Station and complete the other objectives of the flight”.

The Endeavour mission called STS-134 is due to take off on 19 April from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.

Kelly said that his wife’s recovery now involves several hours of rehabilitation and therapy, and her progress has encouraged him to return to his command training. He said he had already spoken to her doctors and there was no reason why Giffords wouldn’t be able to attend the mission’s launch in April:

Video uploaded by ReelNASA