Live: Endeavour crew at KSC for Saturday launch

Seven astronauts scheduled to launch at 7:39 p.m. Saturday aboard space shuttle Endeavour have arrived at Kennedy Space Center from Houston.

The crew touched down in a Gulfstream jet on the shuttle's three-mile runway just after 1:15 p.m., just as a band of rain showers and dark clouds crossed the area.

"It's great for the crew to be back at the Kennedy Space Center," said Mark Polansky, the crew's commander for the planned 16-day International Space Station assembly mission, during very brief remarks at the Shuttle Landing Facility.

Polansky is a veteran of two prior missions.

Other veterans include mission specialists Julie Payette of the Canadian Space Agency, who is making her second shuttle flight in 10 years, and David Wolf, who is making his fourth trip to space.

First-time flyers include the pilot, Doug Hurley, and mission specialists Chris Cassidy, Tim Kopra and Tom Marshburn.

The rookie mission specialists and Wolf will handle five planned spacewalks during a 16-day mission to the International Space Station.

The crew's top task is to complete construction of Japan's Kibo science lab complex with the installation of an exposed "porch," which will house experiments exposed to the harsh environment of space.

They'll also replace six batteries storing power for the station's oldest set of solar array wings, launched in 2000 and now located on the far left end of the station's central truss.

Kopra will join the station's crew of six, and be replaced for Endeavour's return flight home by Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata.

At KSC, Endeavour's crew, dressed in blue NASA coveralls, quickly took shelter in a van that whisked them away minutes before thunder began rumbling overhead.

Meanwhile, space center workers this morning began a hazardous operation to pressurize two dozen tanks with gasses that push rocket propellants into shuttle engines and thrusters.

A second phase to complete the work was scheduled this evening.

IMAGE NOTE: Click the images to fully enlarge them. From left to right above, the crew is mission specialists Tim Kopra, Tom Marshburn and Chris Cassidy, commander Mark Polansky, mission specialists David Wolf and Julie Payette, and pilot Doug Hurley. Below, Payette and Polansky. Credit: Craig Rubadoux, Florida Today.