Although the exact launch time to the space station is easily calculated with readily available tools and information provided on NASA's own Web site, SPACE.com is honoring the space agency's request of news media not to publicize in advance the precise moment when Endeavour is to lift off.

Cockrell and his three crewmates -- pilot Paul Lockhart and mission specialists Franklin Chang-Diaz and Philippe Perin, a French astronaut representing the European Space Agency -- were scheduled to arrive in Florida on Monday, along with the Expedition Five crew of Russian cosmonauts Valery Korzun and Sergei Treschev, and American astronaut Peggy Whitson.

The Expedition Five crew will be taxied up to the outpost aboard Endeavour and remain in space for a four-month sortie at the space station, allowing the Expedition Four crew of Russian Yuri Onufrienko and Americans Dan Bursch and Carl Walz -- who have spent the past six months in space -- to return to Earth in the shuttle.

Of the entire Endeavour crew going up to the station, only Cockrell, Chang-Diaz and Korzun have been in space before -- a fact the mission commander says might result in some amusing scenes onboard once the main engines shut down and the microgravity fun begins.

"It's always fun to watch the rookies flail a little bit when they get to orbit," Cockrell said.

The new recruits may want to keep an eye on Chang-Diaz for clues: the Costa-Rican native is making his seventh spaceflight, tying a record set during the April shuttle mission when astronaut Jerry Ross -- a grandfather -- became the first human to fly into Earth orbit seven times.

Recalling that history seldom remembers the second person to do something, Cockrell said of Chang-Diaz: "He's going to be the first person that is not a grandfather to make seven flights."

Shrugging off the fuss, Chang-Diaz, 52, said he's just thankful he's exactly where he dreamed of being since he was a young man watching the Apollo moonwalks on television. "I'm just getting started," Chang-Diaz said. "I'm hoping that these kinds of records will be easily broken and many times over."

Future Flight

It will take Endeavour about two days to catch up to the space station, with docking scheduled for Saturday, June 1, based on an on-time launch Thursday.

Activities during the next eight days will offer a glimpse into how shuttle missions to the station likely will proceed after the major assembly operations are complete, said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's deputy space station program manager.

"This is kind of a flight of the future," Gerstenmaier said. "This is what I think we're going to see a lot of."

The fun will begin after docking and hatches between Endeavour and space station Alpha are opened as the Expedition Four and Expedition Five crews officially swap duty stations that same day, an event symbolized by the transfer of custom seat liners that go in the Soyuz lifeboat the station crew would use to return to Earth in the event of an emergency.

An Italian supply module called Leonardo is to be plucked from Endeavour's cargo bay and installed against a hatch on the station's Unity node the day after docking. Packed with science experiments, food, clothing and other equipment and supplies, it will take the combined efforts of all 10 humans in space to fully unload the module and then re-pack it with garbage and unneeded stuff for the trip home.

As that work continues throughout the shuttle's stay at the station, Chang-Diaz and Perin are scheduled to make three spacewalks staged from the station's Quest airlock.

The first two spacewalks will focus on station assembly tasks, highlighted by the installation of the Mobile Base System -- a rack of equipment that will be attached to the station's Mobile Transporter, a railroad car-like contraption that was installed on the side of the S-Zero truss during the April shuttle mission.

With the addition of the Mobile Base System to the Mobile Transporter, the station's Canadian robot arm will be able to connect itself to the moveable platform and let go of the fixture it is now attached to on the side of the Destiny science module. That new capability, if it works -- and it must, will allow the Canadarm2 to be used on future assembly missions to connect additional truss segments to the station.

The third spacewalk will be dominated by the replacement of a joint on the Canadarm2 that isn't fully working.

It's a task that was added to the mission just two months ago, but flight controllers and the astronauts say they are completely trained and ready to handle the task, despite the relatively short notice.

"The teams are really ready and we've done everything to prepare, but again, as always, there may be surprises," Gerstenmaier said.

After those extravehicular activities are complete, the fully packed Leonardo module will be returned to Endeavour's cargo bay and the next day the shuttle will undock to begin the two-day journey home to Earth.

Landing is targeted back in Florida on June 11.