Brushing aside White House objections, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a one-year NASA authorization bill that would require the space agency to conduct an extra space shuttle mission to deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) to the International Space station.

The White House says that requiring NASA to fly the AMS could require the agency to operate the space shuttle beyond 2010 and further delay the fielding of its successor, the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle and Ares I rocket.

But the House kept the AMS provision intact and relaxed the space shuttle's 2010 retirement date when it voted Thursday to approve the NASA Authorization Act of 2008 (H.R. 6063) by a vote of 409 to 15. A similar provision was included in a recent draft of a Senate version of the NASA authorization bill that has yet to be introduced there.