Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Final Kibo Parts Rolling to KSC Launch Pad

While shuttle Endeavour prepares for an emergency launch this week, if needed, the payload it is targeted to haul to the International Space Station next month is set to roll to a launch pad today.

The cargo for Endeavour's STS-127 mission, targeted to launch June 13, is scheduled to start rolling to Kennedy Space Center's launch pad 39A at 11 p.m. Bad weather has delayed the trip two days.

A transporter will carry 65-foot canister holding 25,200 pounds of gear, rotated to a vertical position. The journey from KSC's Canister Rotation Facility takes about three hours.

The payload includes the last components of the Japanese Aerospace Agency's Kibo Laboratory, featuring a "front porch" that will serve as a rack for experiments exposed to space.

A robotic arm that will be attached to Kibo's pressurized module - the largest on the station - is also set for delivery. It will position and move the external experiments.

Once at the pad, the payload canister will be lifted to the level of a storage facility inside the pad's Rotating Service Structure by 6 a.m. Thursday.

Then, during the day, the cargo will be transferred into the Payload Changeout Room, which keeps the cargo in an environmentally controlled setting while it awaits installation into the orbiter's payload bay.

The payload is being delivered to pad 39A though Endeavour sits on pad 39B.

Endeavour is still counting down toward a possible launch to rescue the Atlantis crew, in the unlikely event that ship has sustained major damage during flight. If not, NASA plans to roll the shuttle and its mobile launcher platform down to pad 39A on May 29.

Mark Polansky will command the 16-day STS-127 mission, which includes five spacewalks.

He'll be joined by pilot Douglas Hurley and mission specialists Christopher Cassidy, Thomas Marshburn, David Wolf and Julie Payette, a Canadian Space Agency astronaut.

Astronaut Tim Kopra will take over Koichi Wakata's position as a flight engineer and science officer on the station.

Wakata, who launched to the station aboard Discovery in March, will help complete Japan's lab facility and return home on Endeavour.

The STS-127 crew is scheduled to visit KSC May 31 for three days of standard pre-launch training known as the Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test.

IMAGE NOTE: In the Space Station Processing Facility at Kennedy Space Center on May 14, an overhead crane lowers the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Kibo Exposed Facility, or EF, part of the payload for the STS-127 mission, into the payload canister. The EF, along with the Experiment Logistics Module Exposed Section, will be carried aboard space shuttle Endeavour on the STS-127 mission targeted for launch June 13. When the EF is installed on the Kibo laboratory, it will provide a multipurpose platform where science experiments can be deployed and operated in the exposed environment. The payloads attached to the EF can be exchanged or retrieved by Kibo's robotic arm, the JEM Remote Manipulator. Photo credit: NASA/Jack Pfaller.

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