The crew consists of commander Scott J. Kelly, pilot Charles O. Hobaugh, and mission specialists Richard A. Mastracchio, Dafydd (Dave) Williams (Canadian Space Agency), Barbara R. Morgan (NASA’s first educator astronaut), Tracy E. Caldwell, and Benjamin Alvin Drew.

The crew’s duties include installing an extension to the space station’s solar power system and replacing a defective gyroscope. Three spacewalks are planned for the mission.

Biographies of each of the STS-118 astronauts, along with other information about the mission, are found at the NASA website: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/sts118/.

To read more about teacher-in-space astronaut Barbara Morgan, go to “NASA educator-astronaut Barbara Morgan to fly STS-118 in June 2007" (the flight month has since been updated to August) at: http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/8802/1066/.

To read about NASA’s Educator Astronaut Program, go to: http://edspace.nasa.gov/earthcrew/news/ecn2/index.html.

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

To watch the launch live on August 8th, go to NASA TV at: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/.


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