Live at KSC: Launch Day For Endeavour!

NASA is stepping ahead with plans to launch Endeavour and seven astronauts on an International Space Station outfitting and repair mission tonight after a late Thursday night unveiling of the shuttle on Kennedy Space Center's launch pad 39A.

With million-candlepower xenon lights bathing the spaceship, a massive service structure started rolling away from the shuttle about 11:30 p.m. and within 30 minutes, Endeavour was exposed on its seaside launch pad.

Endeavour and its crew remain scheduled to blast off at 7:55 a.m. EST today. The next big milestone: the scheduled 10:30 a.m. start-up of a three-hour external tank fuel loading operation.

More than a half-million gallons of supercold liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen will be pumped into the tank. The propellants will power the orbiter's three main engines during the nine-minute climb into orbit.

We'll have special live countdown coverage here in The Flame Trench and at our Florida Today Home Page during the run-up to launch.

As always, you'll get frequent countdown updates here in The Flame Trench, courtesy of Florida Today space business reporter Patrick Peterson. Patrick also will be sending out Text Message updates to those signed up for the service.

Go here to get hooked up: Text Messaging

Out on the Florida Today Home Page, look for us to start webcasting live NASA TV coverage at 2:30 p.m. Then we'll have live shots from our Florida Today blockhouse just 3.5 miles fromn pad 39A starting at 3 p.m.

We've got an awesome line-up of guests. Check it out:

++At 3:00 p.m.: Former NASA astronaut Loren Shriver will be at the blockhouse to talk about the mission at hand as well as a new software upgrade that would save Endeavour's crew in the unlikely event of an emergency landing at Kennedy Space Center.

++At 4:15 p.m.: Veteran Close-Out Crew member Mike Mangionne of United Space Alliance will join us to talk about suiting up and boarding the winged orbiter.

++At 5:00 p.m.: Boeing Flow Manager Mike Kinslow will detail the heaviest haul of supplies and equipment the shuttle has ever carried in one of its Italian-built moving vans.

++At 6 p.m.: NASA astronaut Janice Voss will chat about the extra science the U.S. and its international partners will be able to do once Endeavour's crew outfits the station for resident crews of six -- double the current number. And finally after 10 years of assembly.

++At 6:30 p.m.: Joe Oliva of Alliant Techsystems, also know as ATK, will cover plans for the first test flight of the Ares 1 rocket -- a developmental flight dubbed Ares 1X -- sometime next summer or fall.

++At 7:00 p.m.: Elliott Harik of Boeing will explain the trouble with the station's Solar Alpha Rotary Joint and how the astronauts intend to fix it during four spacewalks. Harik plans to show us the type of space grease gun the astronauts plan to use to rectify the problem.

++And at 8:30 p.m.: Florida Today Space Reporter James Dean and I will wrap up coverage of what we hope is an on-time liftoff and a very safe and sucessful flight.

Join us.