NASA mission managers
decided Thursday to bump up the planned August launch of the shuttle Endeavour,
giving the spacecraft's seven-astronaut crew a head start on a what is expected
to be a busy month for spaceflight.
Initially targeted for an
Aug. 9 launch, Endeavour's STS-118 crew is now on track to fly two days early
on what will be the orbiter's first
spaceflight since 2002. The extra time will give NASA added flexibility to
launch Endeavour from the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) between the planned Aug. 3
flight of the agency's Mars
Phoenix lander and the Aug. 11 liftoff of an Atlas 5 rocket from the nearby
Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
"They did elect to
move the target date to Aug. 7 to increase our launch opportunities," NASA
spokesperson Kyle Herring, of the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston,
Texas, told SPACE.com.
The move will allow more time
between the launch of Endeavour from KSC and the Atlas 5 rocket carrying the
U.S. military's Wideband Global SATCOM communications satellite. The planned space
shots, as well as the earlier Phoenix launch, will liftoff over the Eastern
Test Range that encompasses both KSC and the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
Range restrictions typically call for a 48-hour buffer period between the
launches.
Commanded by veteran
shuttle flyer Scott Kelly, Endeavour's STS-118 mission will deliver a new
starboard-side piece of the International Space Station (ISS) and haul fresh
cargo to the orbital laboratory.
The STS-118 crew also includes
educator-astronaut Barbara Morgan, who has
waited more than 20 years to fly aboard a shuttle since she was first chosen as
backup for schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe during NASA's Teacher in Space
program. McAuliffe and six NASA astronauts died during the 1986
Challenger accident.
Endeavour's planned 11-day
mission will mark NASA's second of the year to continue assembly of the ISS. The
shuttle Atlantis successfully completed
a 14-day mission on June 22 and NASA hopes to launch up to three more
shuttle flights in 2007.
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