NASA Space Shuttle Endeavor Approved For Lift-Off, Set To Launch...5, 4, 3, 2, 1

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(Space shuttle Endeavour and crew depart for the International Space Station.)

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - After enduring a month's delay, seven astronauts boarded the space shuttle Endeavour on Sunday for an evening flight to the International Space Station.

NASA was hoping thunderstorms would stay away. Forecasters said there was a 70 percent chance the weather would cooperate.

"Look at that!" astronaut David Wolf said, pointing up at the sunshine with both hands.

It was NASA's fourth attempt to send Endeavour on a space station construction mission. Saturday's try was foiled by a series of lightning strikes around the pad that required extra checks of the many critical shuttle systems. Back in June, hydrogen gas leaks held everything up twice.

No leaks popped up this time, thanks to all of the repairs, as NASA fueled Endeavour's external tank for the planned 7:13 p.m. ET liftoff. The tight plumbing allowed commander Mark Polansky and his crew to board the shuttle for the first time for a real launch try. None of the previous countdowns got that far.

The astronauts grinned, waved and gave a thumbs-up as they headed to the pad.

Final segment for Japan’s lab:

Endeavour holds the third and final segment of Japan's enormous $1 billion space station lab, named Kibo, or Hope. It's a porch for experiments that need to be exposed to the vacuum of space. The shuttle also is loaded with large spare parts for the space station and hundreds of pounds of food for the six station residents.

When the shuttle astronauts arrive at the space station, they will make up the biggest crowd ever in a single place in orbit: 13 people.

All of the major space station partners will be represented: the United States, Russia, Canada, Europe and Japan.

An estimated 60 Japanese were on hand for Sunday's launch attempt, a considerably smaller group than back in mid-June for NASA's initial tries.

One of the Americans flying up on Endeavour will trade places with the lone Japanese astronaut on the space station, who has been there since March.

Busy schedule:

Endeavour will spend nearly two weeks at the space station. In all, the flight will last 16 days. Five spacewalks are planned to hook up the Japanese lab's new porch, replace space station batteries and perform other maintenance.

Eight shuttle flights remain, including this one, all involving space station work. NASA is aiming to wrap up the space station construction job and retire the shuttle fleet by the end of 2010 — which makes for a tight schedule ahead.

NASA has until Tuesday or possibly Wednesday to send up Endeavour before it has to make way for the launch of an unmanned Russian supply ship. After that, the shuttle flight would be off until late July.

While NASA prepared for launch, Russian controllers tested an automated rendezvous system on an unmanned Progress cargo ship that had been shadowing the space station since its undocking last month. The ship was successfully commanded to come within about 33 feet (10 meters) of the station, and then back away. The Progress craft then began executing a series of commands that would lead to its safe deorbiting.

The system could smooth out the process of docking with future Progress spacecraft, which are Russia's robotic workhorses for space station resupply.

Over a radio link with the station, the Russian ground team recalled that a similar test led to a collision between Russia's now-defunct Mir space station and a cargo craft back in 1997. They remarked that the near-disaster left some of them with "gray hairs."


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