NASA gave shuttle Endeavour a go-ahead today to blast off June 13 and its seven astronauts will climb aboard the spaceship Thursday for a launch-day dress rehearsal.
Wearing bright-orange partial-pressure launch-and-entry suits, the astronauts will depart crew quarters at Kennedy Space Center early today, board NASA's sleek, silver "AstroVan," and then make the 12-mile trip to launch pad 39A.
A small green elevator will whisk them up to the 195-foot-level of the towering gantry and then the astronauts will cross a metal catwalk before boarding the orbiter.
Mission commander Mark Polansky said the six-man, one-woman crew is already ready to go.
"It would be great if we could just climb in and go, but I think our families would be a little upset because they're not here," Polansky joked.
As it stands, Endeavour and the astronauts are scheduled to set sail at 7:17 a.m. June 13 on a mission to deliver the third and final section of the Japanese Kibo science reseach facility to the International Space Station.The date and time were firmed up at the conclusion of an all-day flight readiness review at KSC on Wednesday. The astronauts will go in to quarantine Saturday and return to KSC late next Monday. A three-day launch countdown will begin next Wednesday.
"We're getting pretty darn close to kicking this mission off here," Polansky said. "We're excited about the work we're going to do."
The astronauts aim to outfit the Kibo science laboratory -- already the largest of four at the station -- with a "front porch" that will serve as an external platform for science experiments that require direct exposure to the space environment.
During five spacewalks -- the most on any station assembly mission to date -- the astronauts also will swap out six $3.6 million nickel-hydrogen batteries that have been storing and providing electrical power to run station systems for since 2000.
The 375-pound batteries measure 40 inches-by-36-inches-by-18-inches.
NASA's 127th shuttle mission will be the 23rd flight of Endeavour and the 28th shuttle mission performed in the assembly of the station since its first two building blocks were linked in low Earth orbit in late 1998.
It is the first of eight remaining station assembly and outfitting missions scheduled to be flown before the shuttle fleet is retired at the end of 2010. Once the mission is complete, the station will weigh 668,855 pounds and be 84.6-percent complete.
ABOUT THE IMAGE: Click to enlarge and save the NASA image of the STS-127 crew in the flame trench at launch pad 39A at the end of an informal Q&A with reporters. You can click the enlarged image, too, to get an even larger, more detailed view. The external tank and solid rocket boosters of shuttle Endeavour make for a nice backdrop. From left to right are mission commander Mark Polansky, pilot Douglas Hurley, mission specialist Julie Payette of the Canadian Space Agency, mission specialist Tom Marshburn, mission specialist Tim Kopra, mission specialist Chris Cassidy and mission specialist Dave Wolf. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett.
No comments:
Post a Comment