Click here for missionupdates and 's live NASA TV video feed. is providing continuous coverage of STS-127 with reporter Clara Moskowitz atCape Canaveral and senior editor Tariq Malik in New York.
Endeavour?sflight will mark NASA?s third shuttle mission of up to five planned for thisyear. Moses saidhe is confident the glitch will not appear during Saturday?s launch attempt. They replaced the plate and ahydrogen vent line seal, and successfully tested the fix last week. Engineers tracked the problem to a misalignedplate on the shuttle?s 15-story external tank. Wakata has livedaboard the station since March and will return to Earth aboard the shuttle.Įndeavour?smission has been delayed since mid-June due to a vexing hydrogen gas leak thatstalled two launch attempts. OneEndeavour crewmember, NASA astronaut Tim Kopra, will replace Japanese spaceflyerKoichi Wakata as part of the station?s Expedition 20 crew. The sevenEndeavour astronauts will boost the station?s current six-man crew up to 13people - its highestpopulation ever - when the shuttle arrives.
Five spacewalks are planned to install the spaceporch and perform station maintenance. It is the third, and last, pieceof the $1billion Japanese facility. Commandedby veteran spaceflyer Mark Polansky, Endeavour?s six-man,one-woman crew plans to deliver an external experiment-carrying porch forthe space station?s massive Japanese lab Kibo.