Live at KSC: Countdown coverage on Tap

NASA plans to gas up shuttle Discovery's external tank today and plunge toward launch of seven astronauts on a mission to assemble the International Space Station.

As it stands, Discovery and its crew are scheduled to blast off at 7:43 p.m. We'll have live updates from Kennedy Space Center on a three-hour fuel-loading operation that is scheduled to begin at 10:28 a.m.

You can watch live NASA TV coverage of the launch here in The Flame Trench beginning at 2:30 p.m. Simply click the NASA TV box at the righthand side of the page to launch our NASA TV viewer and live coverage.

Standard NASA TV launch commentary will come up ast 2:30 p.m., but then at 3:15 p.m., we'll start a live broadcast that will feature current and former astronauts as well as managers and engineers who have played key roles in the mission.

A scant 3.5 miles from Discovery's launch pad, we'll gather folks on the rooftop of our Kennedy Space Center Bureau Office to give folks a great view of the launch pad.

We'll simulcast NASA TV countdown commentary starting at 2:30 p.m. and then start our own FLORIDA TODAY news reports and interviews at 3:15 p.m. The broadcast updates are set for the top and bottom of every hour until the 7:43 p.m. liftoff.

If you can't be at your computer during the countdown, you can sign up at floridatoday.com/text to get updates sent directly to your cell phone or mobile device.

The full schedule of special guests follows.

3:15 p.m.: Former NASA astronaut James Halsell, now with shuttle booster manufacturer ATK. We'll talk about the upcoming Ares I-X test flight, the first test launch in the development of the country's next human space launch vehicle.

4 p.m.: We'll have a countdown status report and a chat with FLORIDA TODAY space reporter James Dean. Dean will discuss the Discovery crew, which includes former Mel-High Science Teacher Joe Acaba. How did a guy go from teaching science in high school to flying in space?

4:30 p.m.: Countdown update and chat with Carter Reznik of Boeing about Discovery's prime payload, a fourth and final set of U.S. solar wings for the International Space Station. He'll explain how the astronauts will deploy them in orbit.

5 p.m. Countdown update and chat with Robert Pearlman of collectspace.com about the personal items the astronauts will be flying and what Koichi Wakata of the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency will be taking up to the station for Japan's first long-duration expedition at the outpost.

5:30 p.m. Countdown update and chat with FLORIDA TODAY photographer Craig Bailey about how to take good shuttle launch photos during the twilight environment we'll see tonight.

6 p.m.: Countdown update and chat with NASA Astronaut Kay Hire, the first KSC worker to be selected to the astronaut corps and fly in space. Hire is scheduled to become the only former KSC worker to fly twice in space on a mission next February.

6:30 p.m. Countdown update and chat with United Space Alliance Vice President Anne Martt about Discovery serving as a flying testbed for heat-shield research.

7 p.m. We'll offer a final countdown update before returning back to NASA TV for final go-for-launch polls and the pick-up of the final countdown at T-Minus-9-minutes.