Countdown preparations for space shuttle Endeavour’s launch on Friday at 3:47 p.m. EDT are in process throughout NASA’s Kennedy Space Center today and teams in the Launch Control Center will officially begin the countdown at 2:00 pm.
Technicians at Launch Pad 39A will close Endeavour’s payload bay doors today and workers at Kennedy’s Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) prepare for the STS-134 crew’s arrival this afternoon.
Endeavour’s six astronauts are expected to arrive at the Shuttle Landing Facility at approximately 12:15 p.m. in T-38 training jets.
During the 14-day mission to the International Space Station, Commander Mark Kelly and the STS-134 crew will deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer and spare parts to the orbital outpost.
There is speculation that Endeavour’s 25th and final flight will be over-shadowed by the attendance of Commander Mark Kelly’s wife, Rep. Gabby Giffords, who was critically injured when she was shot in the head on January 12, earlier this year, as she held a “Congress on Your Corner” event in Tucson. A lone gunman, Jared L. Loughner, 22, is suspected of carrying out the shooting rampage which left six persons dead, including Tucson’s Chief federal Judge John Roll and a 9-year-old girl, Cristina Greene.
Giffords, 40, who is still recovering in Texas, was recently cleared by her doctors to travel to Florida to attend the launch of space shuttle Endeavour. While Giffords will be in attendance at the launch at the Kennedy Space Center, she will not be seen in public.
Meanwhile, President Barack Obama and the first family are also expected to attend the launch of space shuttle Endeavour. It’s the first time a sitting president will attend a space shuttle launch since President Bill Clinton did so in 1998.
