Endeavour Astronauts Complete Mock Countdown

The Endeavour astronauts staged an emergency escape drill at Kennedy Space Center's launch pad 39A today, winding up a two-day practice countdown and a full-up dress rehearsal for a planned June 13 launch.

Decked out in bright-orange partial-pressure launch-and-entry suits, the astronauts departed crew quarters at the Operations and Checkout Building in the KSC Industrial Area early today and then headed out to the pad in NASA's Astrovan.

With Firing Room 4 at the Launch Control Center fully staffed, and countdown clocks ticking backward, the astronauts took a lift to the 195-foot-level of the launch tower and boarded the orbiter through its side hatch.

Mission commander Mark Polansky and his crew then went through all the same systems checks that they will step through a week from Saturday as countdown clocks wound down to a simulated main engine shutdown around T-Minus 4 seconds.

The astronauts exited the vehicle in small groups and moved quickly to slidewire baskets on the opposite side of the 195-foot-level of the pad.

The astronauts all climbed into the baskets but did not hit release levers that would have sent them whizzing down a 1,200-foot slidewire to a bunker area on the western perimeter of the pad area.

The Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test -- or TCDT -- was the last major prelaunch training exercise for the astronauts at KSC. Had it been a real launch day with a real T-Zero at 11 a.m., the launch would have been weathered out.

Four key Launch Commit Criteria were violated by the cloudy, rainy conditions here at the nation's spaceport today. The chart above shows NASA would have been no-go for cumulus clouds, disturbed weather, field mills and flight through precipitation.

NASA has a network of field mills that measure electrical potential in the atmosphere. They are meant to prevent NASA from launching into atmospheric conditions that might cause a shuttle to trigger destructive bolts of lightning in flight.

The astronauts are scheduled to fly back to Ellington Air Field near Johnson Space Center tonight and then go into quarantine at JSC on Saturday.

The crew will return to KSC at 12:15 a.m. Tuesday, and a three-day countdown will pick up at 9 a.m. Wednesday. External tank fuel-loading operations are slated to begin at 9:52 p.m. Friday. Liftoff is targeted for 7:17 a.m. Saturday.

ABOUT THE IMAGES: Click to enlarge and save the NASA image of the Endeavour astronauts departing crew quarters early today. You can also click the enlarged image to get an even nigger view. In the from row, left to right, are pilot Douglas Hurley and mission commander Mark Polansky; in the second row, left to right, are mission specialists Chris Cassidy and Julie Payette of the Canadian Space Agency; lined up behind them are mission specialist Tom Marshburn, Tim Kopra and Dave Wolff. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett. The second image is a blurry screen grab from the Air Force 45th Space Wing Weather Squadron's Weather Channel. It shows NASA was "red," or no-go, for four different violations of Launch Commit Criteria during the final stages of the practice countdown today.