Discovery astronauts expected at KSC

Discovery's astronauts are scheduled to fly to Kennedy Space Center today to take part this coming week in emergency training at launch pad 39A and a practice countdown for their planned Oct. 23 launch.

Led by veteran astronaut Pam Melroy -- who will become the second woman to command a U.S. shuttle mission -- the crew is expected to arrive at the KSC Shuttle Landing Facility around 5:30 p.m. EDT. They will be flying in T-38 training jets from Ellington Air Field near Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The crew also includes pilot George Zamka and mission specialists Scott Parazynski, Douglas Wheelock, Stephanie Wilson and Paolo Nespoli of the European Space Agency. NASA astronaut Dan Tani will fly up to the International Space Station aboard Discovery. Station flight engineer Clay Anderson will return to Earth on the shuttle.

NASA and contractor engineers and managers will be called to their stations in the KSC Launch Control Center at 12:30 a.m. Tuesday for the practice countdown, which is known as the Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test, or TCDT.

The astronauts on Wednesday will don partial-pressure launch-and-entry suits and board Discovery at the pad for the last three hours of the launch-day dress rehearsal. The T-Zero will be at 11 a.m. Wednesday.