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Discovery crew at the Cape for practice countdown BY JUSTIN RAY SPACEFLIGHT NOW Posted: May 6, 2008 Shuttle Discovery's astronauts flew into Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday afternoon for this week's countdown dress rehearsal and emergency training drills at launch pad 39A. "The folks here at KSC work really, really hard for many months to get the space shuttle ready for launch. And this week is kind of the intersection of all their hard work and all of our training, which is mostly in Houston. It all comes together here in Florida, so we're really glad to be here," said shuttle commander Mark Kelly. "The bird is on the pad. We just have a little bit of training and a little bit of practice to go. We'll be ready to take off in a few weeks," added Mike Fossum, a mission specialist and the lead spacewalker for the flight. Discovery is scheduled for launch on May 31 for a two-week mission to deliver Japan's Kibo science laboratory module to the space station. The seven-person crew, which also includes pilot Ken Ham, mission specialists Karen Nyberg, Ron Garan, Akihiko Hoshide and station-bound astronaut Greg Chamitoff, flew from Houston aboard several T-38 jets, touching down at the Cape a little after 4 p.m. EDT Tuesday. On their way to the spaceport runway, the crew buzzed over shuttle Discovery at launch pad 39A. But Ham, a first-time space flier, had a funny story to tell reporters after the astronauts arrived, drawing laughs from the media and his fellow crewmates. "I think this is a sign of being a rookie," Ham said. "As we were flying over here, I'm looking at two pads and I don't know which one the orbiter is on. So I flew right between them until I saw it and then went around it." The crew came to Florida for the Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test, or TCDT. Every shuttle crew undergoes this multi-day training exercise in the final weeks before a planned launch. The astronauts will spend time learning how to evacuate pad 39A if an emergency arises, including procedures to operate the slide-wire baskets that would quickly whisk the crew from the launch tower to a bunker west of the pad, and test-drive an armored tank available for the astronauts to escape the area. Other activities on their schedule this week include inspections of the Japanese science lab module now loaded into the shuttle's payload bay, trying on the launch and landing spacesuits and holding an informal chat with reporters at the pad. The TCDT culminates Friday when the crew boards Discovery for a full countdown simulation. The astronauts will follow a normal launch morning routine with breakfast, a weather briefing on conditions at the Cape and various abort landing sites, then don their suits and depart crew quarters at about 7:45 a.m. to board the Astrovan that will take them to pad 39A. After arriving shortly past 8 a.m., all seven astronauts will climb inside Discovery and strap into their assigned seats for the final three hours of the mock countdown. Clocks will halt in the final seconds to simulate a shutdown of the three main engines just prior to liftoff around 11 a.m. The crew will egress the shuttle and practice scurrying to the slide-wire baskets. For the countdown, the shuttle won't be fueled and the crew won't actually leave the tower in the baskets. Once the countdown is completed, the crew will return home to Houston for the final weeks of training there. The astronauts are due back in Florida around midday on May 28 for the start of Discovery's real countdown.
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VIDEO:
ASTRONAUTS ARRIVE FOR PRACTICE COUNTDOWN 