Watch Live: Joint Crew News Conference On Tap

The combined crew of the International Space Station will hold a joint news conference today as the Endeavour astronauts head into the home stretch of their outpost assembly mission.

Shuttle skipper Mark Polansky and station commander Gennady Padalka will gather their crews for the 40-minute briefing, which will be broadcast live here in The Flame Trench. The joined crews -- which total 13 people -- represent the largest contingent ever onboard the station simultaneously.

Click the NASA TV box on the right side of the page to launch our NASA TV viewer and live coverage of the briefing, which is scheduled to begin at 2:28 p.m.

News media at NASA centers will participate along with reporters at station partner facilities around the globe.

The shuttle crew includes pilot Douglas Hurley and mission specialists Dave Wolf, Chris Cassidy, Tom Marshburn, Julie Payette of the Canadian Space Agency and Koichi Wakata of Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. Wakata, the first Japanese astronauts to serve a long tour on the station, is returning to Earth aboard Endeavour.

The station crew includes flight engineers Frank De Winne of the European Space Agency, Bob Thirsk of the Canadian Space Agency and two U.S. astronauts: Michael Barratt and Tim Kopra.

All major partners in the station project are represented on the joined crews. Payette and Thirsk are the first Canadians to fly in space simultaneously.