Endeavour on pad; Atlantis bound for home

Shuttle Endeavour is perched on launch pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center today after an overnight move from the 52-story Vehicle Assembly Building.

Riding atop a mobile launch platform on a giant crawler transporter, Endeavour emerged from the assembly building at 11:24 p.m. EST Sunday and then made its way down the river-rock crawlerway to the oceanfront launch pad.

The shuttle reached the pad at 4:45 p.m. and was hard-down on top of the incline at 39A around 6:22 a.m.

"Beautiful way to start the day," said Endeavour Flow Director Ken Tenbusch.

Endeavour and a crew of seven astronauts are scheduled to blast off March 11 on a mission to deliver the first section of the Japanese Kibo science research facility to the International Space Station.

The shuttle's payload, which was delivered to the launch pad over the weekend, also includes a two-armed Canadian robot that will be used to perform maintenance work outside the station that spacewalking astronauts otherwise would have to do.

Tenbusch said the payload will be installed in the shuttle's cargo bay over the next several days. A five-story-tall ground operating mechanism will be used to snatch the payload from a clean room at the pad and then load it into Endeavour's expansive cargo bay, which is 60 feet long and 15 feet wide.

If all goes well, the shuttle's clam shell-like payload bay doors will be closed for flight on Saturday, the same day Endeavour's crew is scheduled to arrive at Kennedy Space Center to take part in a two-day practice countdown and emergency training.














Led by veteran astronaut Dom Gorie, the crew includes pilot Gregory H. Johnson and mission specialists Richard Linnehan, Robert Behnken, Michael Foreman and Takao Doi of the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency.

NASA astronaut Garrett Reisman will fly up to the station aboard Endeavour. He'll replace European Space Agency astronaut Leopold Eyharts as a flight engineer on the orbiting outpost.

Eyharts flew to the station aboard shuttle Atlantis, which departed the complex earlier today and is heading toward a landing Wednesday at Kennedy Space Center.













"We're looking forward to getting home, and we're headed home now," mission commander Stephen Frick told colleagues in NASA's Mission Control Center after a final separation burn rocketed Atlantis out of the station's immediate vacinity.

Atlantis and its crew are scheduled to touch down at KSC at 9:06 a.m. EST Wednesday.









NOTE ON IMAGES: Click to enlarge and save any of the Florida Today images above. All were taken by award-winning photographer Michael R. Brown after Endeavour reached launch pad 39A early today.