This story was updated at 12:40 p.m. EST.
NASA's
shuttle Endeavour is on track to begin the longest construction flight yet
aimed at the International Space Station (ISS) next week, mission managers said
Friday.
Endeavour
and its seven-astronaut crew have a 90 percent chance of good weather for their
planned predawn launch at 2:28 a.m. EDT (0628 GMT) on Tuesday from NASA's
Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Cape Canaveral, Fla. The astronauts will deliver a
Canadian-built robot and the first segment of Japan's Kibo research
laboratory to the station during their planned 16-day flight.
"We're hoping
it's going to be a good day for us on Tuesday morning," NASA test director Steve Payne said in a mission briefing at KSC. "Endeavour and her crew are ready to
launch."
Commanded
by veteran spaceflyer Dominic Gorie, Endeavour's
STS-123 crew is slated to arrive at a KSC runway tonight at 9:00 p.m. EST
(0200 March 8 GMT). Launch controllers at KSC will begin counting down to
Tuesday's planned liftoff at 3:00 a.m. EST (0700 GMT) on Saturday.
A storm
system that has unleashed two tornados in northern Florida is expected to spawn
thunderstorms over NASA's Florida launch site, but should not pose a threat to next
week's planned launch.
"The launch
weather right now is looking favorable for launch day," said Todd McNamara, NASA's
shuttle weather officer.
Payne said
that aside from a UHF radio glitch, Endeavour is in ship shape for Tuesday's
launch. A high-power amplifier is not working properly, but the radio has two
other low-power amplifiers as backups. The radio is used to beam some data to Mission
Control during launch and to communicate with flight controllers during
landing.
Engineers
are currently discussing whether to repair the amplifier or fly as-is, but
either option is not expected to delay Endeavour's first launch attempt, Payne
said.
"We've
looked at it and we can do everything we need to with the two low-power amplifiers,"
he added.
Endeavour
has two initial opportunities to fly, on March 11 and March 12, before NASA
will stand down to clear the launch range for the liftoff of a global
positioning satellite atop an unmanned Delta 2 rocket from the nearby Cape
Canaveral Air Force Station. The next window to launch Endeavour would come on
March 15.
NASA also hopes
to launch the shuttle by March 23 in order to complete the STS-123 mission
before Russia's planned April 8 launch of a new crew and South Korea's first
astronaut to the ISS. Europe's first
space station cargo ship, the Automated
Transfer Vehicle Jules Verne, is also slated to launch toward the ISS late
Saturday EST on a shakedown cruise that will end with an early April docking
between the U.S. and Russian spaceflights.
Endeavour's
mission will mark NASA's second shuttle flight this year and comes just weeks
after the successful Feb. 20 landing of Endeavour's sister ship Atlantis, which
delivered Europe's Columbus laboratory to the ISS.
"We kind of
surprised ourselves," Payne said. "This team has performed spectacularly."
NASA will broadcast the spaceport arrival of Endeavour's astronaut crew live on NASA TV beginning at 9:00 p.m. EST (0200 March 8 GMT). Click here for SPACE.com's NASA TV feed and STS-123 mission updates.
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