Click here for mission updates and 's live NASA TV video feed. The California Science Center will begin moving a large external space shuttle tank into the Endeavour’s permanent Go For Stack position Wednesday morning.
is providing continuous coverage of STS-127 with reporter Clara Moskowitz at Cape Canaveral and senior editor Tariq Malik in New York. So in large part that second day is making sure we're ready for the rendezvous."Įndeavour is due to dock at the space station at 1:55 p.m. "We need to immediately get going for a campout in preparation for the next day's. "It's a long, extensive process to double check that, make sure that everything is in the same configuration as when they launched it, and nothing got rattled out of place with the dynamic environment of the launch and get things set up for the next day when we rendezvous with the station and open the hatches," said mission specialist Chris Cassidy. That equipment must be checked out to make sure it is working properly, and readied to be transferred into the space station when the shuttle arrives. The rest of the crew plans to gather the gear needed for the mission's five planned spacewalks, including the spacesuits and tools. "In the meantime, the rest of the crew will be getting ready for what they're going to be primarily accomplishing, which are the spacewalks." After taking to the air, Endeavour, riding piggyback on the SCA, embarked on. "It's very intensive, takes a lot of time and a lot of attention so three of us will be doing that," Polansky said in a preflight interview. EDT (1122 GMT) liftoff marked the start of the final ferry flight for the 30-year space shuttle program. Thursday's heat shield inspection is scheduled to last several hours while Polansky, pilot Doug Hurley, and mission specialist Julie Payette scrutinize the shuttle's wings and underbelly. A piece of foam debris damaged Columbia's heat shield during launch, leading to its destruction during re-entry. In a milestone, the Los Angeles home of the retired space shuttle Endeavour broke ground Wednesday on a permanent museum. The inspections have been a standard part of shuttle mission since the loss of Columbia and its seven-astronaut crew in 2003. EDT (0628 GMT), riding a towering column of white smoke in a rare night liftoff from Launch Pad. Astronauts aboard the space station will photograph the thousands of tiles on Endeavour's belly before the shuttle docks to complete the heat shield health check. Endeavour and its seven-astronaut crew successfully left Earth at 2:28 a.m. A similar scan will be performed near the end of Endeavour's flight to look for dings from space junk and micrometeorites. The meticulous scan should help determine whether the orbiter is safe to fly home through Earth's atmosphere by seeking out any damage from launch debris. EDT (1638 GMT) using a sensor-tipped inspection pole to sweep the sensitive heat shield panels lining the orbiter's wing edges and nose cap. Shuttle commander Mark Polansky and the other six astronauts aboard are due to begin their survey at 12:38 p.m. (NASA is broadcasting real-time audio of the Apollo 11 launch and mission here: ). The Endeavour astronauts will be in space Monday for the anniversary of the actual moon landing, which occurred on July 20, 1969. The timestamp is only as accurate as the clock in the camera, and it may be completely wrong.The shuttle flight launched just ahead of the liftoff anniversary for NASA's historic Apollo 11 mission, which blasted off 40 years ago today to send three Americans to make the first-ever manned landing on the moon. If the file has been modified from its original state, some details such as the timestamp may not fully reflect those of the original file. This file contains additional information such as Exif metadata which may have been added by the digital camera, scanner, or software program used to create or digitize it.