Atlantis' standby shuttle to roll out on Thursday
Shuttle Endeavour will come into the rescue act if something goes wrong with Atlantis. The scheduled date of Shuttle Atlantis launch is October 10.
Once after the successful launch of Atlantis, Endeavour will move to Launch Pad 39A for the scheduled STS-126 mission to ISS set for November 12.
Shuttle Endeavour starting its journey from Kennedy's Orbiter Processing Facility reached the Vehicle Assembly Building on Thursday. Soon Shuttle Endeavour will be attached to its external fuel tank and twin solid rocket boosters in preparation to its shifting to the launch pad.
On the coming Thursday, Shuttle Endeavour will begin its journey to the launch pad at 12:01 am EDT. Officials at NASA have said that the fully assembled space shuttle, consisting of the orbiter, external tank and twin solid rocket boosters, will be delivered to the pad atop a crawler-transporter. It has been said that the crawler will make the journey in seven hours traveling at a speed of 1 mph to cover a distance of 4.2-miles.
