Endeavour and NASA’s STS-118 set to launch

William Atkins
Sunday, 05 August 2007 20:05

Science - Space

After a one-day delay to finish repairs and other preparatory work, NASA’s space shuttle Endeavour and its crew are ready to launch from pad 39A at 6:36 pm EDT on Wednesday, August 8, 2007, within a ten minute launch window.

As the 119th space shuttle mission and the 22nd space station flight, the mission will deliver additional support structure to the ever-expanding International Space Station.

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/.