Endeavour cleared for launch
2008-03-01 12:56
Cape Canaveral - Nasa managers on
Friday cleared the US space shuttle Endeavour for liftoff on
March 11 on the first of three flights to deliver a huge
Japanese research complex to the International Space Station.
Blastoff from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida was
scheduled for 02:28(0628 GMT).
Barring last-minute delays, the flight would represent the
quickest turn-around between shuttle missions since Nasa
resumed launches 2-1/2 years after the shuttle Columbia was
destroyed on re-entry into the atmosphere in 2003.
The shuttle Atlantis returned from a mission to deliver
Europe's Columbus research laboratory to the space station on
February 20.
'Amazing'
"We landed (Atlantis) nine days ago, which is just amazing
to me," said John Shannon, who took over last week as the
shuttle programme manager. "The team has turned around and is
ready to go."
The seven-member Endeavour crew includes two of Nasa's most
experienced fliers, four rookies and Japan's Takao Doi, who
participated in a shuttle research mission in 1997.
The shuttle is scheduled to spend two weeks at the space
station to install a storage room for Japan's Kibo laboratory
complex and outfit the station's Canadian-built robot arm with
a mechanical hand.
The primary portion of Kibo, which is a Japanese word for
"hope", is being prepared for launch in late May.
Experiments
The third
segment, an outdoor porch for exposing experiments to space,
will follow in 2009.
During Endeavour's flight, Europe's new cargo ship, the
Automated Transfer Vehicle, or ATV, will be loitering about 2 km from the station, waiting for its turn to berth.
The debut flight of the European Space Agency's unmanned
spacecraft is scheduled for 23:28 EST on March 7 (0428 GMT
March 8).
It will launch from Kourou, French Guiana.
"Space is getting to be very busy," Shannon said.
Endeavour's mission will also include a test of a heat
shield repair technique Nasa wants to demonstrate before a
servicing call to the Hubble Space Telescope in late August or
early September.
Safe return
Without the space station to serve as a safe haven, a
shuttle crew visiting the Hubble telescope has few options if
their space ship should become too damaged to safely return to
Earth.
Columbia was destroyed, and its crew of seven killed,
because its heat shield was damaged on liftoff.
Nasa is hoping to fly six shuttle missions this year,
including the Hubble flight.
The US space agency needs to
carry out 11 remaining space station construction missions by
September 2010 when the shuttles are set for retirement.