Chief
08-08-2007, 01:09 PM
http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/070807_sts118_cargo_science.html
NASA's space shuttle Endeavour is poised for a Wednesday launch into orbit, but its seven astronaut operators are not the only passengers making the trip.
A team of 24 small mice, part of a muscle atrophy study, and other experiments will ride out Endeavour's spaceflight tucked away inside the orbiter's middeck compartments. The shuttle's 60-foot (18-meter) payload bay, meanwhile, contains two massive additions for the International Space Station (ISS) and a cargo pod packed full of supplies for the orbital laboratory's three-astronaut crew.
"We are excellent to near perfect right now, and very much looking forward to a launch here on Wednesday to put our hardware up in orbit where it belongs," Endeavour's STS-118 payload manager Scott Higginbotham said Monday.
Commanded by veteran spaceflyer Scott Kelly, Endeavour's STS-118 crew is set to launch Wednesday at 6:36 p.m. EDT (2236 GMT) for an 11-to-14 day ISS assembly flight.
The orbiter's crew includes teacher-turned-astronaut Barbara Morgan, on her first flight since she joined NASA in 1985 as the agency's backup to Teacher in Space Christa McAuliffe. McAuliffe and six NASA astronauts were aboard the space shuttle Challenger when it broke apart just after launch in January 1986.
**SCHNIPP**
We are about 2.5 hours away from launch, the crew is loaded and they are closing the shuttle up. (I keep NASA TV on exclusively during launch preps).
This is some of the best live television around...
;D
NASA's space shuttle Endeavour is poised for a Wednesday launch into orbit, but its seven astronaut operators are not the only passengers making the trip.
A team of 24 small mice, part of a muscle atrophy study, and other experiments will ride out Endeavour's spaceflight tucked away inside the orbiter's middeck compartments. The shuttle's 60-foot (18-meter) payload bay, meanwhile, contains two massive additions for the International Space Station (ISS) and a cargo pod packed full of supplies for the orbital laboratory's three-astronaut crew.
"We are excellent to near perfect right now, and very much looking forward to a launch here on Wednesday to put our hardware up in orbit where it belongs," Endeavour's STS-118 payload manager Scott Higginbotham said Monday.
Commanded by veteran spaceflyer Scott Kelly, Endeavour's STS-118 crew is set to launch Wednesday at 6:36 p.m. EDT (2236 GMT) for an 11-to-14 day ISS assembly flight.
The orbiter's crew includes teacher-turned-astronaut Barbara Morgan, on her first flight since she joined NASA in 1985 as the agency's backup to Teacher in Space Christa McAuliffe. McAuliffe and six NASA astronauts were aboard the space shuttle Challenger when it broke apart just after launch in January 1986.
**SCHNIPP**
We are about 2.5 hours away from launch, the crew is loaded and they are closing the shuttle up. (I keep NASA TV on exclusively during launch preps).
This is some of the best live television around...
;D