The
seven-astronaut crew of NASA's shuttle Endeavour strapped into their spacecraft
Wednesday for a dress rehearsal of their planned November launch toward the
International Space Station.
Clad in
bright orange launch and entry suits, Endeavour's STS-126 crew climbed inside
the shuttle to practice for a planned Nov. 14 blast off, then scrambled out of
the spacecraft in an emergency escape drill atop NASA's Launch Pad 39A at the
Kennedy Space Center in Florida, agency officials said.
"The
training really is very important," said Endeavour shuttle pilot Eric Boe, a
first-time spaceflyer, Tuesday from the launch site in Cape Canaveral, Fla. "For
three of us, this is the first chance we've had to actually get into a vehicle
while it's on the pad."
The launch practice is part of NASA's traditional preflight Terminal Countdown
Demonstration Test for shuttle
astronauts. NASA mission managers are expected to meet Thursday to discuss
Endeavour's status and set an official launch date for the spaceflight.
Commanded
by veteran spaceflyer Chris Ferguson, Endeavour astronauts plan to ferry a new
crewmember, life support and gym equipment, closet-like bedrooms, a spare
kitchen and a second bathroom to the space station during their
15-day mission. Four spacewalks are planned during the flight to clean and
grease up a balky solar array joint on the station's starboard side.
"We're
turning the space station from a three-bedroom, one-bath outpost into a
five-bedroom, two-bath orbiting laboratory from which we can conduct science
for the years to come," Ferguson said Tuesday. "It'll also have a gym, and for
the first time we're also going to have a small refrigerator. So as
far as crew amenities are concerned, I'd like to think that this mission is
extremely important."
By the end
of the spaceflight, Ferguson and his crew hope to leave the space station ready
to double its current three-person crews. The first
six-person crew is slated to take up residence aboard the station next
year.
Joining
Ferguson and Boe aboard Endeavour will be mission specialists Don Petit, Steve Bowen,
Heidi Stefanyshyn-Piper, Shane Kimbrough and Sandra Magnus. Boe, Bowen and
Kimbrough will make their first spaceflight during the mission. Magnus,
meanwhile, will replace NASA astronaut Greg Chamitoff as a member of the
station's current
Expedition 18 crew.
Chamitoff
joined the station crew in June and will return aboard Endeavour, while Magnus
will await her replacement's arrival early next year.
"We've been
anxious to get to a six-person crew for a very long time," Magnus said. "And
this mission's the first stepping stone toward that."
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