CAPE
CANAVERAL — Tornado-generating thunderstorms sliced across the Florida peninsula Friday, delaying the arrival of NASA's seven-astronaut crew set to launch
Tuesday aboard space shuttle Endeavour.
The astronaut
crew touched down here at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) at 1:30 a.m. EST (0630
GMT) Saturday morning — more than four hours after their scheduled Friday evening
arrival time. During a break between torrential downpours, Dominic Gorie,
veteran spaceflyer and commander of the STS-123 International Space Station
(ISS) construction mission, quickly addressed members of the press.
"Thank
you all for ... welcoming us here in this wonderful weather we've got,"
Gorie said. "I think when we get the weather done with here today, we're
going to have a nice shot at launching."
Delaying
the crew's arrival helped the astronauts avoid flying through most of the
severe weather during a short journey from Johnson Space Center in Houston, NASA spokespeople at KSC said. The band of storms generated more than 10 tornadoes
Friday, according to National Weather Service reports, injuring dozens and
reportedly killing one.
In spite of
the delay, NASA spokespeople said the change of plans should not interfere with
the crew's 2:28 a.m. EST (0628 GMT) launch toward the space station on March 11.
A glitch with one of Endeavour's UHF radios, used to communicate during launch
and landing, is also not
expected to interfere with mission plans because two backups exist, mission
managers said Friday morning.
Wet
Welcome
Amid the
rain and lightning, Gorie was joined by pilot Gregory H. Johnson and mission
specialists Robert Behnken, Mike Foreman, Rick Linnehan and Garrett Reisman at
NASA's Shuttle Landing Facility.
Mission specialist Takao Doi,
the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's astronaut, also stepped onto the flooded
tarmac to before members of the press.
The STS-123
crew is slated to add a new Japanese pressurized module and a two-armed
robot named Dextre to the space station, as well as deliver and test a
suite of experiments on orbit during five planned spacewalks.
Endeavour's
anticipated Tuesday launch will be as NASA's second of six space shuttle
missions planned for 2008 — three more than the agency successfully launched
last year. Scheduled to last at least 16 days, the mission will also be the longest
ever attempted during a space station construction flight.
"We've
got a very, very ambitious flight schedule," Gorie said, "but with a
great orbiter waiting for us and this great crew, we're going to have a great
mission."
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