Thursday, July 09, 2009

Live at KSC: Endeavour's Forecast Unchanged

Today's forecast offers Endeavour's 7:39 p.m. Saturday launch the same 40 percent chance of acceptable weather conditions as Wednesday's, because of thunderstorms and anvil clouds likely near Kennedy Space Center.

Read the official forecast from the Air Force's 45th Weather Squadron here. Conditions are expected to improve Sunday and Monday, if those days are necessary.

NASA is pressing ahead with its countdown, which started at 10 p.m. Wednesday.

Today, preparations are under way to load the shuttle's fuel cells with liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, a system that produces the electricity that powers shuttle systems during flight.

Loading of the cryogenic reactants is expected to start at 7:30 p.m. with pad 39A cleared of non-essential personnel.

Other processing activity includes checking backup flight systems and software, activation and testing of navigational systems, and preliminary inspections of the flight deck.

NASA will host another countdown status briefing at 10 a.m. Thursday to update the weather and Endeavour's processing.

Participating in the briefing will be Steve Payne, NASA test director, Scott Higginbotham, payload manager, and a shuttle weather officer.

You can watch the briefing live here by clicking on the NASA TV still image above or on the right side of the page to launch a viewer.

Refresh this page for updates throughout the countdown. And click here or use the black box on this page to sign up to receive text message updates on your phone on launch day.

Click here to read a summary of Endeavour's planned 16-day International Space Station assembly mission, which will complete Japan's Kibo science lab.

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