Jun 16, 2009 8:00 pm US/Pacific
NASA Fueling Shuttle For Wednesday Launch
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) ―
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The Space Shuttle Endeavour sits on launch pad 39A after the Rotating Service Structure was rolled back at Kennedy Space Center as it is prepared for a launch to the International Space Station on June 12, 2009, in Cape Canaveral, Fla.
Eliot J. Schechter/Getty Images
Racing against the clock, NASA began fueling shuttle Endeavour for a Wednesday launch to the international space station after thunderstorms caused a three-hour delay.
The fueling finally got under way late Tuesday, just when it should have been ending.
NASA acknowledged it would be tight to meet the 5:40 a.m. liftoff time. But launch controllers spent the long weather delay figuring out ways to save time during the remainder of the countdown, and mission managers felt they had a good shot at getting Endeavour flying.
The seven astronauts, awaiting word at crew quarters, were ecstatic.
"We are GO for tanking!" commander Mark Polansky wrote in a Twitter update.
This is NASA's second attempt to launch Endeavour and its crew on the space station construction mission and the last one this month. If Endeavour isn't flying by Wednesday, it will have to make way for an unmanned moon shot and wait until July.
A leak in a hydrogen gas vent line thwarted Saturday's attempt, the same kind of problem that stalled a shuttle flight in March. The same sort of repairs were done. NASA won't know if the repairs were successful until close to the end of the three-hour fueling process.
The most severe thunderstorms were actually to the north and west of Kennedy Space Center, but they posed a threat of lightning at the launch pad. That's a violation for loading more than 500,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen and oxygen into the shuttle's external fuel tank.
The weather outlook, at least, was good for liftoff: 80 percent favorable.
Endeavour is set to deliver the third and last segment of Japan's massive space station lab. It will be one of the longer international space station visits -- nearly two weeks docked at the orbiting outpost -- and include five spacewalks.
Once the shuttle pulls up at the space station, there will be 13 people together in space for the first time ever.
NASA bumped its launch of two lunar probes, which had been scheduled for Wednesday, to give Endeavour this second chance. The moon mission is now scheduled for a Friday liftoff.
(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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