Discovery astronauts at pad 39A

Discovery's astronauts will take time out from emergency training today to talk with reporters at Kennedy Space Center's launch pad 39A.

NASA TV coverage of the traditional media Q&A session will be webcast live here in The Flame Trench beginning at 8:15 a.m.

Led by veteran astronaut Pam Melroy, who will become only the second woman to command a shuttle mission, the crew includes pilot George Zamka and mission specialists Scott Parazynski, Stephanie Wilson, Douglas Wheelock and Paolo Nespoli of the European Space Agency. NASA astronaut Dan Tani will fly up to the International Space Station with the crew; station flight engineer Clay Anderson will return to Earth with the shuttle.

The astronauts will be at launch pad 39A for emergency training. The training includes a familiarization with the launch tower escape system -- metal baskets that would glide from the 195-foot level of the tower down a 1,200 foot slidewire to a bunker at the western perimeter of the pad area.












The astronauts won't ride the baskets. That's only been done once, back in 1987, when former astronaut Charlie Bolden and two KSC rescue workers -- George Hogard and Junior Bumgartner -- whizzed down them during a training drill. Top speed: 55 mph.

NASA and contractor engineers, meanwhile, were called to their stations in the Launch Control Center around 12:30 a.m. today for the start of a two-day practice countdown known as the Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test, or TCDT.

The astronauts will don partial-pressure launch-and-entry suits early Wednesday and board Discovery at the pad for the last three hours of the launch-day dress rehearsal, which will conclude around 11 a.m. with a simulated launch-pad abort.

IMAGE NOTE: Click to enlarge and save the Florida Today photos of the Discovery astronauts at Kennedy Space Center's launch pad 39A. The crew includes (from left to right) mission commander Pam Melroy, pilot George Zamka and mission specialists Scott Parazynski, Stephanie Wilson, Douglas Wheelock, Paolo Nespoli of the European Space Agency and Dan Tani. Photo credit: Michael R. Brown, Florida Today.