The shuttle is taking on fuel right in preparation for today’s launch:
It’s launch day at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where Space Shuttle Endeavour and her crew of seven astronauts are undergoing final preparations for the STS-118 mission to the International Space Station.
Endeavour’s orange external tank is being loaded with 500,000 gallons of liquid oxygen and hydrogen. This process, called “tanking,” takes about three hours to complete. The propellant levels in the tank will be continuously “topped off” during the remainder of today’s countdown.
All systems onboard the space shuttle are functioning normally this morning, and there’s only a 20 percent chance of weather prohibiting a liftoff at 6:36 p.m. EDT.
It took 22 years for one astronaut to reach this day:
Morgan, a former McCall, Idaho schoolteacher, has waited and worked through 22 years and two shuttle accidents for her planned evening launch aboard Endeavor. She first joined NASA in 1985 as the backup for New Hampshire high school teacher Christa McAuliffe, the first Teacher in Space who died with six other astronauts during the 1986 Challenger tragedy.
“I see this more of a continuation,” Morgan said of her flight as it relates to McAuliffe’s. “I think the great thing about it is that people will be thinking about Challenger and thinking about all the hard work that lots of folks, over many years, have done to continue their mission.”
NASA called Morgan back into its spaceflying fold in 1998, this time as a full-fledged educator astronaut and mission specialist. She was assigned to Endeavour’s STS-118 flight in 2002 after training to wield its robotic arm and speak for Mission Control as spacecraft communicator, or CAPCOM, but had to stand down until NASA’s return to flight following the 2003 Columbia accident.
Keep an eye on the official countdown clock. The mission blog will kick into gear sometime around noon.
Mission Resources
STS-118 Mission Overview
STS-118 Fact Sheet (900 Kb PDF)
STS-118 NASA TV Schedule
STS-118 Briefing Animations
STS-117 Mission Archive
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