CAPE
CANAVERAL, Fla. – Thanks to a bout of dry air, NASA's weather forecast for a
Wednesday launch of the space shuttle Endeavour and its STS-118 crew looks
promising.
"The
weather pattern is pretty friendly for this time of year, given that it's summer
time," said Kathy Winters, shuttle weather officer here at Kennedy Space
Center (KSC). Winters said there's only a 10 percent chance of delaying fueling
of the spacecraft due to the threat of isolated showers, and a 30 percent
chance of launch delay from potential thunderstorms.
Should
mission managers delay the launch, Winters said the 30 percent chance of delay
will remain the same throughout the week and actually drop to 20 percent on
Friday.
"It
looks like we're going to get a break from [thunderstorms] for launch day,"
Winters said. NASA hopes to rocket the STS-118
crew towards the International
Space Station (ISS) on 6:36 p.m. EDT (2236 GMT) from Pad 39A.
Final
preparations
As the
countdown clock ticks down, Nicole Cloutier-Lemasters, a Johnson Space Center
spokesperson here at KSC, said the astronauts are continuing with their final preparations for launch day.
The
crew is squeezing in some final training flights, receiving medical checks and
going over the mission objectives and Endeavour's controls, she said.
Cloutier-Lemasters
said crew commander Scott Kelly and pilot Charlie Hobaugh
flew a shuttle training aircraft today. The two
veteran astronauts also plan to jet around in T-38 supersonic jet trainers
to prepare ready for the speedy ascent into space.
"We're
making sure everything is going well their last few days here," Cloutier-Lemasters said.
Building
the future
Led by Scott
Kelly, the seven-person crew will dock with the ISS two days after launch and
continue their 11-day mission, which is likely to be extended to 14 days thanks
to a small power-transferring system.
Officials said
the mission will be a mixed bag of tasks, but its ultimate goal is to continue
with assembly of the space laboratory as well prepare it for future
construction.
"There's
a little bit of assembly, there's some re-supply, there's some repairs and
there are some high-visibility education and public affairs events," said
Matt Abbott, NASA's lead STS-118 shuttle flight director, of the mission last
month. "It's a little bit of everything."
Barbara
Morgan, NASA's teacher-turned-astronaut,
will be part of Endeavour's crew delivering a 4,010-pound (1,820-kilogram)
spacer for the Starboard-5 (S5) truss segment of the ISS. The piece will
add another element to the space station's growing backbone and make way for
its future expansion, but the shuttle's biggest haul will be a 7,000-pound
(3175-kilogram) external stowage platform for the ISS.
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