Endeavour Astronauts Ready For Media Meet

Shuttle Endeavour's 25th and final crew will gather at Kennedy Space Center's launch pad 39A early today, meeting with the media for a 10- to 15-minute informal Q & A.

You can watch the event live here in The Flame Trench. Click the NASA TV box on the right side of the page to launch our NASA TV viewer and live cover beginning at 8:40 a.m. today.

The national media has been laser-beam focused on mission commander Mark Kelly, whose wife, U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is struggling to recover from a critical head wound inflicted in a Jan. 8 assassination attempt in Tucson that killed six and injured more than a dozen.

The Endeavour crew intends to keep the discussion centered on the delivery to thr station of the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer -- a sophisticated high energy particle detector -- along with a pallet holding a spare radiator as well as other large spare parts that cannot be launched on any vehicle other than the shuttle.

The 134th and penultimate shuttle mission remains scheduled for launch at 7:48 p.m. Apil 19.