Big Day: Shuttle Landing, Progress Docking

The Endeavour astronauts are aiming to land at Kennedy Space Center at 1:19 p.m. EST today, but a cold front sweeping into Florida could force the shuttle and its crew to take a detour to a back-up landing site in California.

A robotic Russian cargo carrier, meanwhile, is scheduled to dock at the International Space Station at 7:23 a.m. EST.

We'll be webcasting live NASA TV coverage of both events here in The Flame Trench. Simply click the NASA TV box on the righthand side of the page to launch our NASA TV viewer and live coverage of both the Progress docking and the Endeavour landing.

Coming up first: The delivery of several thousand pounds of supplies and equipment to the International Space Station.

Russia's Progress M-31 cargo carrier is slated to dock at the station at 7:23 a.m. after a two-day trip from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The space freighter is carrying 2.5 tons of food, fuel, water, clothing, and other supplies.

The Endeavour astronauts, meanwhile, might be headed for a cross-country detour.

NASA meteorologists say there is a very good chance that a cold front making its way over the west coast of Florida could bring high crosswinds, thunderstorms and/or dangerous electrically charged clouds into the KSC area.

The forecast is so iffy today and on Monday that NASA already has brought up its back-up landing site at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

NASA Entry Flight Director Bryan Lunney, the son of legendary Gemini and Apollo flight director Glynn Lunney, said if the weather is no-go at KSC, and the forecast at the shuttle homeport remains gloomy for Monday, he'll opt to send Endeavour and its crew to the Mojave Desert military base.

We'll have live coverage of the Progress docking starting at 6:45 a.m. and then stick with us for what could be a long shuttle landing day.

The Endeavour astronauts are scheduled to close the shuttle's payload bay doors about 9:30 a.m. EST and then execute a deorbit burn at 12:14 p.m. in advance of what would be a 1:19 p.m. landing.

A second and final KSC opportunity on Sunday would come at 2:54 p.m. EST. Deorbit burn in that case would be at 1:50 p.m. EST.

An Edwards landing on Sunday would take place at 4:25 p.m. EST.