NASA began counting down Wednesday toward the weekend launch of space shuttle Endeavour, on track for a space station construction mission.Forecasters put the odds of good launch weather Saturday morning at 90 percent.
The crew of space shuttle Endeavour, from left, flight engineer Timothy Kopra, mission specialist's Thomas Marshburn, and Christopher Cassidy, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Julie Payette, commander Mark Polansky, pilot Douglas Hurley and mission specialist David Wolf gather for photos after their arrival at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Tuesday, June 9, 2009. Endeavour is scheduled for a June 13 launch on a mission to the International Space Station.(AP Photo/John Raoux)
The flight comes less than three weeks after NASA's last shuttle trip involving the successful overhaul of the Hubble Space Telescope. The highlight of this 16-day mission will be the completion of a huge Japanese lab.
Endeavour was on standby as a rescue ship throughout the Hubble mission. Severe thunderstorms prevented NASA from moving Endeavour from one pad to the other on time and, in fact, kept the Hubble crew from landing in Florida.
Given all the bad weather, it was "a particular challenge" getting Endeavour ready to fly, said test director Steve Payne. The shuttle, at least, had no technical problems. "We kind of joke the only black clouds on the horizon were the actual black clouds on the horizon," he told reporters.
When Endeavour arrives at the space station, it will mark the first time 13 people are together in space at the same time. Six people now live at the space station; they will be visited by seven shuttle astronauts.
The shuttle will deliver food for the six station residents, along with an outdoor porch that the astronauts will attach to Japan's $1 billion lab, named Kibo, or Hope. The porch will house experiments that need to be exposed to the vacuum of space.
Five spacewalks are planned during Endeavour's visit.
Payload manager Scott Higginbotham said he will be sorry to say "sayonara" to the Japanese engineers and program managers who have worked at Kennedy Space Center for the past six years. Japan delivered the massive Kibo lab to Kennedy in 2003, and NASA launched it in 2008
The experiment porch will be the third and final piece of Kibo to fly.
"This has been a long journey for us and our Japanese colleagues," Higginbotham said. Everyone feels a sense of pride and accomplishment at finally reaching the point "where we can finally put the last pieces of Kibo into orbit and get that magnificent laboratory up and running at full strength.,"
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