Shuttle launch and spacewalk preps in work

Live: Refresh this page for periodic updates and the latest still images from Kennedy Space Center's launch pad 39A (left) and live NASA Television (right). Click on the pictures for larger views. You can also click here to play NASA TV live video in a 2nd smaller window.

NASA is plunging ahead with preparations for three shuttle launches in the next 14 weeks while astronauts aboard the International Space Station gear up for crucial spacewalking repair work this week at the outpost.

At launch pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center, technicians are rigging up ordnance on shuttle Atlantis, which is tentatively scheduled to launch Feb. 7 on a mission to haul the European Columbus science laboratory to the station.

The small pyrotechnic devices are used to separate the shuttle from its launcher platform, solid rocket boosters and external tank in flight. Final connections are to be made Tuesday, and NASA managers will gather at KSC on Wednesday for an executive-level Flight Readiness Review. There has been some talk of moving the launch date up to Feb. 6, but managers are expected to firm up Feb. 7 at the review.

Despite fuel-level sensor problems that delayed the Atlantis launch two months, NASA still intends to launch six missions this year.

Endeavour is slated to launch the first sections of the Japanese Kibo science research facility on March 11. Discovery still is scheduled to fly the Kibo pressurized lab module on April 24.

The fifth and final Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission is being targeted for launch around Aug. 28, and station assembly missions are being slated for around Oct. 16 and Dec. 4.

Up on orbit, meanwhile, station commander Peggy Whitson and flight engineer Dan Tani are preparing for a spacewalk early Wednesday to replace a broken solar array motor drive. The two also will inspect the problem-plagued Solar Alpha Rotary Joint on the starboard side of the station's central truss.

Both the motor drive and the 10-foot rotary joint must be fixed to restore full power-generation capability at the outpost -- a key to continuing the assembly sequence after the STS-123 mission in March.

NASA space station project managers and spacewalk officers will brief the media on plans for the excursion at 2 p.m. EST today. You can watch the briefing live here in The Flame Trench by clicking the link below the images above.

Check out the detailed timeline and procedures for the spacewalk here: EVA 14 Timeline.

We'll webcast live NASA TV coverage of the excursion beginning at 4 a.m. EST Wednesday. Live coverage of a news conference of the Messenger mission to planet Mercury will be webcast at 1 p.m. EST that day, and you can also watch a 2 p.m. EST post-spacewalk briefing and a 3 p.m. post-Flight Readiness Review briefing here in The Flame Trench that day.