If the weather holds and everything goes according to plan, space shuttle Endeavour will roar aloft at 6:17 a.m. Central time today on a 16-day mission to the international space station.
When the seven astronauts reach the station early Monday, they will join the station’s newly expanded crew of six residents and mark the first time as many as 13 space fliers have gathered at the same time in the same place, more than 200 miles above Earth.
The group will include representatives of most of the major nations that for more than a decade have worked on creating a truly international perch in low Earth orbit. Seven of the astronauts are from the United States, two each hail from Russia and Canada, and Belgium and Japan are represented by one member each.
All will join in carrying out one of the longest and most complex station-construction missions ever attempted.
The shuttle will be delivering badly needed spare parts for the station as well as food, new batteries, other supplies — and the final piece of Japan’s $1 billion Kibo lab, an outdoor “porch” where experiments can be exposed to space.
It’s going to take five spacewalks and operators using three robotic arms — one on the shuttle, one on the station and one on Kibo — to move all the pieces, passing them back and forth in a carefully choreographed robotic ballet. At 16 days, it is one of the longest shuttle missions ever.
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