Live at KSC: Crew Begins Launch Training

Shuttle Discovery's crew arrived at Kennedy Space Center around 10:30 a.m. today and has begun training for a launch less than a month away.

The seven astronauts got a first glimpse of their spaceship on its launch pad as they flew T-38 training jets into the spaceport.

"We did a nice pad fly-by on the way in," said mission commander Lee Archambault during a question-and-answer session with reporters. "It's beautiful to see Discovery out there on the pad."

Archambault was joined by pilot Tony Antonelli and mission specialists Joseph Acaba, Steve Swanson, Richard Arnold, John Phillips and Koichi Wakata.

Their 14-day mission to the International Space Station is scheduled to blast off Feb. 12 from launch pad 39A.

The crew immediately began training known as the Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test, or TCDT, that runs through Wednesday.

Today's activities familiarize the crew - which includes three first-time flyers - with how to drive an M-113 tank that would be used to escape a launch pad emergency.

The lime-green, turret-less tank would peel away from a bunker area and smash through the pad's perimeter fence to reach an area where medical personnel would be on standby.


Archambault and Antonelli will also fly a modified Gulfstream-2 jet, called the Shuttle Training Aircraft, to simulate shuttle landings while wearing their orange launch-and-entry suits.

You can see Archambault at left in the aircraft's cockpit during the same training for the STS-117 mission in 2007, which he piloted.

The TCDT training peaks Wednesday morning with a launch dress rehearsal and countdown that cuts off at T minus six seconds, when the crew will practice a launch pad abort.

"This is really the culmination of our training," Archambault said this morning.

The mission commander closed by thanking "the thousands of people here at the Kennedy Space Center who do so much for our space program. We appreciate it."

The Discovery crew will haul the last set of American-made solar wings to the space station, completing its power supply.

The 31,000-pound "Starboard 6" truss segement holding the packed solar wings was successfully installed in Discovery's payload bay over the weekend.

IMAGE NOTE: Click to enlarge the images. Top: The STS-119 crew this morning at the Shuttle Landing Facility is, from left, mission commander Lee Archambault, Pilot Tony Antonelli and mission specialists Joseph Acaba, Steve Swanson, Richard Arnold, John Phillips and Koichi Wakata. Middle: Archambault's STS-117 crew in 2007 practiced driving M-113 tanks. Bottom: STS-117 Pilot Lee Archambault in his seat in the shuttle training aircraft, or STA, at KSC's Shuttle Landing Facility. The jet that was modified to simulate an orbiter's cockpit, motion and visual cues, and handling qualities. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett.