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Despite Ike, Space Shuttle Endeavour Rolls to the Pad Thursday
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Hoisting Endeavour in the VAG/NASA
Despite the problems caused by Hurricane Ike at Johnson Space Center, NASA will roll Space Shuttle Endeavour out to Launch Pad 39 B at Florida's Kennedy Space Center Thursday. The move from the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) is set to begin at 12:01 a.m.
The spaceship, mated with its external tank and solid rocket boosters, will travel atop the crawler-transporter. If you haven't yet seen the huge Apollo-era crawler in action, here's a video explaing how the crawler carries the orbiter and its stack to the launch pad atop their Mobile Launcher Platform.
Once Endeavour is at the pad, space fans will be treated to the rare sight of two shuttles on the launch pad at once. Space Shuttle Atlantis is currently at Launch Pad 39A preparing for its October 10 liftoff on a Hubble Space Telescope repair mission (STS-125).
The Hubble mission includes five spacewalks in 11 days. Spacewalking astronauts will install new scientific instruments and repair components on some others.
Also on tap for a busy Thursday: specialized KSC teams will move cargo for the Hubble mission from the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility to the launch pad. There, it will be installed in Atlantis in clean room operations.
Despite three tropical storms closing four NASA facilities in about two weeks, liftoff of Space Shuttle Atlantis remains targeted for its new launch date of October 10. Damage from Tropical Storm Fay closed a slight slip in launch dates for both Atlantis and Endeavour.
Endeavour and its crew will launch Nov. 12 on the STS-126 mission. Scheduled as a mission to ferry supplies and an incoming astronaut crew member to the International Space Station, Endeavour also has a backup role. In case anything goes wrong on the dangerous and delicate STS-125 Hubble mission, Endeavour will be ready to blast off and rendezvous for a rescue mission.
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