ENDEAVOUR—Trades pads.

October 22, 2008—The great “Shuttle shuffle” continues at Kennedy Space Center. Atlantis was pulled off launch pad 39A after its repair mission to the Hubble Space Telescope was postponed. Now, Endeavour is up for a re-supply flight to the International Space Station.

NASA is preparing to roll Endeavour out to the launch pad formerly occupied by Atlantis. The flight’s crew patch is pictured here. This supply flight to the International Space Station was originally going to play “second fiddle” to the much anticipated Hubble repair mission. That is, until the one point six billion dollar observatory suffered the first of several breakdowns late last month. First, its primary data transmitter failed, then last week, it’s main computer showed a bad voltage reading and the Advanced Camera or Surveys failed to reboot. Endeavour was stationed at pad 39B to be the rescue Shuttle in case Atlantis got into trouble with launch day damage. The planned Saturday move is called a "roll around", taking Endeavour from pad "B" to pad "A" for liftoff.

Now, Endeavour’s “routine” ISS mission will round out launch year 2008 for NASA.  First-time Commander Chris Ferguson will lead a seven member crew, which will deliver an Italian built cargo module filled with supplies. Astronaut Sandy Magnus will also stay behind on the outpost as its latest full-time crewmember. 

On the book front, I’ve been invited to address the Coral Gables Chamber of Commerce next week. It was put together by our friends at Miami public radio station WLRN following their successful “space day” pledge drive event which featured “Final Countdown” as the only pledge gift that day. If you’re in South Florida, the talk and book signing will be at the Westin Colonnade Hotel on Aragon Street next Wednesday.

More to come…