Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' recovery continues.

The Arizona Democrat will undergo an operation in Houston on Wednesday, in which doctors are slated to replace part of her skull, just two days after she watched her husband Mark Kelly blast into space on the space shuttle Endeavour.

PHOTOS: Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords With Her Family

Gabrielle Giffords defied the odds and watched her husband blast off in the shuttle early this morning -- in person!

The day before the launch at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, U.S. Rep. Giffords and her astronaut husband Mark Kelly spent some time together alone at an exclusive beach house on the property where the crew stays.

PHOTOS: Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords With Her Family

Recovering Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is planning to “climb a mountain.”

Giffords' husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, told the Arizona Republic on Sunday that his wife is slowly improving, as he sees progress "every few days."

PHOTOS: Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords With Her Family

Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords continues to make remarkable progress.

The Arizona Democrat, 40, uttered her first words this week in the Houston hospital she's rehabbing in, asking for a piece of toast, RadarOnline.com has learned.

It’s the first she’s spoken since she was shot in the head last month by Jared Loughner in the Tucson rampage that left six people dead. The congresswoman's aide C.J. Karamargin said she's been communicating "more and more each day," a development her doctors say is a milestone in her recovery from the shooting.

Astronaut Mark Kelly, the husband of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, is headed to space this April to be the commander of the final shuttle ride for Endeavour, RadarOnline.com has learned.

Giffords is the Arizona congresswoman shot in the head at close range by Jared Loughner in the January 8 shooting rampage Tucson that left six people dead.

Kelly, 46, is expected to formally announce his mission Friday afternoon at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, the same city where Giffords, 40, is undergoing rehab for the injuries she suffered in the shooting.