By TonyF on 10 November 2008 at 11:36PM
Endeavour is scheduled to launch Friday night! NASA reports:
Image above: The crew of STS-126 saw space shuttle Endeavour up-close recently during a launch rehearsal at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. The astronauts will return to Kennedy on Tuesday for a scheduled launch Friday evening. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett
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Nov. 10, 2008
A busy five days remain before space shuttle Endeavour is to launch on the last mission of 2008. The seven astronauts who will guide Endeavour to the International Space Station will fly to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday afternoon a few hours before the countdown begins to Friday’s liftoff. Launch time is scheduled for 7:55 p.m. EST.
The crew is spending its last full day at NASA’s Johnson Space Center conducting a practice liftoff inside an extremely sophisticated simulator. The simulator is an exact replica of the shuttle cockpit and is controlled by a bank of computers to make it react just as a real shuttle.
Technicians at Kennedy are putting the finishing touches on Endeavour as the countdown nears. They are not working any major issues and all the preparations are on track for the countdown to begin.
Endeavour will carry about 14,500 pounds of equipment and supplies to the International Space Station during STS-126. The equipment includes new crew quarters, a galley, oxygen generator and wastewater recycling device. The equipment will allow the station to double its crew to six next year.
The gear is packed inside a cargo module called Leonardo. The astronauts will lift Leonardo out of Endeavour’s payload bay and temporarily attach it to a port on the station so astronauts can transfer the equipment inside. Then Leonardo will be returned to Endeavour and brought back to Earth.
Additional Resources
› STS-126 Press Kit (4.4 Mb PDF)
› STS-126 Mission Summary (475 kb PDF)
› About the Crew
› Shuttle Launch Manifest
Preflight pics are up at the JSC Gallery. More preflight pics and video at KSC. Discussion here. Check the links at right for play-by-play and NASA TV.
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