Space shuttle Endeavour is right where it needs to be for a targeted June 13 liftoff after swapping launch pads today at Kennedy Space Center. Endeavour was declared "hard down" on launch pad 39A at 11:42 a.m., more than eight hours after rolling off the neighboring pad 39B to the north at 3:16 a.m.
It was the last time a shuttle would sit on pad 39B, and only the fourth time a shuttle moved between the twin launch sites. Pad 39B is being turned over to NASA's Constellation program, which hopes to launch the first test flight of the agency's next-generation rocket in September.
To launch the Ares I-X test flight, KSC workers must make significant modifications to the pad that couldn't begin until Endeavour moved out of the way.
Endeavour was on the pad because Atlantis' recent mission to the Hubble Space Telescope needed a shuttle ready to quickly fly a rescue mission if Atlantis sustained serious damage from launch or space debris. With Atlantis safely on the ground in California, Endeavour moved 3.4 miles to the primary shuttle launch pad, 39A, where the cargo it will haul to the International Space Station already awaited.
The payload, including the final components of Japan's Kibo science lab, is scheduled to be installed in Endeavour on Monday. Endeavour's crew, led by commander Mark Polansky, plans to fly into KSC on Tuesday for three days of countdown practice.
NASA executives will gather Wednesday at the spaceport for a flight readiness review that will set the 16-day mission's official launch date.
Endeavour has no contingency days available to meet the June 13 target date. The shuttle must launch by June 15 or wait until at least July 12.
That's because NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter satellite is slated to blast off June 17 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket.
And for several weeks afterward, the sun's angle to the space station would not generate enough power to support a shuttle mission there.
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