The crew—which does most of its training at the NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC), in Clear Lake City, Texas, which is just south of Houston—flew in from Ellington Field, which is located a few miles north of JSC. They arrived on Florida soil at about 7 p.m. EDT.

For the past several months, space shuttle and space station flight controllers at the Johnson Space Center, along with the astronauts, have been practicing all the activities involved with the STS-118 mission, including pre-launch, launch, orbit, rendezvous, proximity operations, docking, activities while on the station, and de-orbit, re-entry and landing.

This dry run by the astronauts, which is called the terminal countdown demonstration test, will help familiarize themselves with the mission procedures and activities—what to expect while on the launch pad and while lifting off.

On Thursday, July 19, the STS-118 crew will also board their spacecraft—the Space Shuttle Endeavour—in order to conduct a simulation of the actual launch in August, along with simulated landings at the end of their mission.

The launch training of crewmembers includes practice on how to escape from launch pad 39A in case a serious problem occurs while inside the shuttle. This practice includes various activities, equipment, and vehicles that provide egress of the astronauts away from the shuttle during a possible emergency.

The NASA STS-118 mission web page is found at: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/sts118/index.html.

Other STS-118 iTWire articles include:

"NASA moves up launch of next shuttle mission, STS-118, to August 7th " at http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/13242/1066/, and

 "NASA educator-astronaut Barbara Morgan to fly STS-118 in June 2007" (which has since been updated to August) at: http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/8802/1066/.

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