Space Shuttle Endeavour to Launch March 11

Shuttle Astronauts Rehearse March Launch to Space Station
The crew of the NASA's STS-123 mission aboard shuttle Endeavour pose for a preflight protrait during launch training. They are (from left): mission specialists Rick Linnehan and Robert Behnken, pilot Gregory Johnson, commander Dominic Gorie and mission specialists Mike Foreman, Garrett Reisman and Takao Doi. (Image credit: NASA/Jim Grossmann.)

The shuttleEndeavour and a crew of seven astronauts will launch in less than two weeks on whatwill be the longest mission to date headed for the International Space Station(ISS), top NASA officials said Friday.

Shuttlecommander Dominic Gorie and his STS-123 crew are now officially set to lift offat 2:28 a.m. EDT (0628 GMT) on March 11 from NASA?s Kennedy Space Center inCape Canaveral, Fla., on a 16-day mission to deliver a new orbital room androbot to the ISS.

?The teamsare ready to go launch on March 11,? NASA space operations chief Bill Gerstenmaiertold reporters in a briefing at KSC. ?This is an extremely complex mission.?

Gorie andhis crewmates are charged with delivering the first module of Japan?s Kibolaboratory and a Canadian-built robot for exterior maintenance, as well as replacingone member of the station?s three-person crew. The astronauts will perform fivespacewalks to install the Japanese-built module, Canada?s two-armed Dextrerobot and test a shuttle heat shield repair technique among their other stationwork.

?This is reallythe international portion of the International Space Station,? said Gerstenmaier,adding that new control centers in Japan and France will join others in theU.S., Russia and Germany during the flight.

Leftoverdebris from the Feb. 20 destruction of a U.S. spy satellite, which prompteda launch delay for a new reconnaissance spacecraft this week, will nothinder Endeavour?s planned liftoff, mission managers said. The U.S. Navy destroyedthe dead satellite with a missile to prevent its half-ton load of toxicrocket fuel from endangering people on the Earth.

?It reallyposes no risk to the shuttle,? said Gerstenmaier, adding that the odds ofEndeavour suffering a major debris strike increased only slightly from a 1-in-269chance to 1-in-259. ?We don?t see any concern or problems.?

Endeavour?splanned March 11 launch comes less than three weeks after the successful returnof its sister ship Atlantis, which landed Feb. 20 after delivering Europe?sColumbus laboratory to the ISS.

?Space isgetting very busy,? said John Shannon, NASA?s shuttle program manager. ?The teamis turned around and ready to go for this new mission.?

Launch trafficahead

Endeavouris set to launch between two other spacecraft also boundfor the ISS; the European-built unmanned cargo ship Jules Verne, to launchMarch 7, and a Russian Soyuz spacecraft to lift off on April 8.

NASA shuttlelaunch director Mike Leinbach said Endeavour has least two opportunities to fly,on March 11 and March 12, before standing down for five days to allow anunmanned Delta 2 rocket to launch a navigation satellite from the CapeCanaveral Air Force Station near KSC.

Endeavourmust also lift off by March 23 in order to complete its mission before theApril Soyuz launch to ferry a new crew to the ISS, Leinbach added.

?Life is gettingmore complicated,? Gerstenmaier said. ?We?ve got lots of stuff flying in space.?

If JulesVerne, the European Space Agency?s first Automated Transfer Vehicle, launchesMarch 7, there will likely be intermittent communication outages with Endeavourdue to the finite satellite resources available for use by the cargo ship,shuttle and space station, Shannon said.

While the shuttleis docked at the ISS, Jules Verne will be parked about 1,243 miles (2,000 km) awayfrom the station before continuing its shakedown cruise, mission managersadded.

Endeavour?screw is scheduled to head toward NASA?s KSC spaceport on March 7 to begincountdown procedures for their March 11 launch.

  • VIDEO: ESA's New Science Laboratory
  • IMAGES: STS-122 Launch Day
  • SPACE.com Video Interplayer: Europe's Columbus Lab Sets Sail for ISS on STS-122

 

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Tariq Malik
Editor-in-Chief

Tariq is the Editor-in-Chief of Space.com and joined the team in 2001, first as an intern and staff writer, and later as an editor. He covers human spaceflight, exploration and space science, as well as skywatching and entertainment. He became Space.com's Managing Editor in 2009 and Editor-in-Chief in 2019. Before joining Space.com, Tariq was a staff reporter for The Los Angeles Times covering education and city beats in La Habra, Fullerton and Huntington Beach. In October 2022, Tariq received the Harry Kolcum Award for excellence in space reporting from the National Space Club Florida Committee. He is also an Eagle Scout (yes, he has the Space Exploration merit badge) and went to Space Camp four times as a kid and a fifth time as an adult. He has journalism degrees from the University of Southern California and New York University. You can find Tariq at Space.com and as the co-host to the This Week In Space podcast with space historian Rod Pyle on the TWiT network. To see his latest project, you can follow Tariq on Twitter @tariqjmalik.