Live coverage: One ship rolls out; another undocks

Space station docking port


NASA's shuttle fleet will be on the move early Monday, with Endeavour rolling out to its launch pad and Atlantis departing the International Space Station, heading toward a landing this week at Kennedy Space Center.

Perched atop a giant tracked transporter, Endeavour is scheduled to emerge from the KSC Vehicle Assembly Building at 12:01 a.m. EST. Its destination: launch pad 39A. Moving along at a top speed of 1 mph, the crawler-transporter is expected to arrive at the seaside launch gantry between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. Total distance covered: 3.5 miles.

Refresh this page for the latest still image (above, left) from a live video feed at the launch pad. Click to enlarge the photo and then refresh the page again.

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

Up at the orbital outpost, meanwhile, Atlantis and its crew are scheduled to start a two-day trip back to Earth with a 4:27 a.m. EST departure from the 250-ton complex.

With pilot Alan Poindexter at the controls, the shuttle will spring loose from a docking port at the forward end of the U.S. Harmony module and then he'll back the winged spaceship to a point 600 feet from the station.

Gently pulsing shuttle steering thrusters, Poindexter then will guide the shuttle on an amazing loop around the entire space station as camera-wielding crewmates beam stunning views back to the ground.

You can watch the Atlantis departure live here in The Flame Trench. Simply click the link below the photos above to launch our NASA TV viewer.

The shuttle will swing to a point directly above the outpost about 5:08 a.m. EST; Atlantis will be directly behind the station around 5:19 a.m. EST and then directly below the complex at 5:31 a.m. EST.

The first of two separation burns then will be fired as Atlantis leaves the vacinity of the station and rockets toward a 9:06 a.m. Wednesday landing at KSC.