Liftoff Now Scheduled August 8

Liftoff will come a little later for Endeavour. NASA announced Friday the agency will postpone Endeavour's scheduled launch by 24 hours, in order to give the shuttle processing team some extra time in readying the orbiter.

The new launch time is targeted for Wednesday, August 8 at 1836 EDT. The countdown will begin Sunday at 2000 local time.

NASA says the extra day will provide engineers some extra breathing room as they work to complete the processing of the orbiter... a task made a bit more challenging than hoped for this week by storms around Kennedy Space Center, as well as technical glitches on Endeavour.

The day brought some good news, as well. An earlier leak in Endeavour's crew cabin has been fully resolved. The problem was traced to one of two positive pressure-relief valves that ensure that the cabin does not become over-pressurized.

The suspect valve was removed and replaced with a valve from Atlantis. Another round of testing was successfully completed Thursday night, with no leakage detected.

Led by Commander Scott Kelly, the STS-118 flight crew arrived at Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility this week. The seven astronauts will spend the remaining days until launch undergoing final prelaunch preparations, including suit fit checks, briefings, medical exams and landing practice in the shuttle training aircraft.

"I would like to congratulate all the orbiter teams here at the Kennedy Space Center for the really outstanding effort they gave trying to get Endeavour ready to go for a Tuesday launch," said Commander Scott Kelly upon arriving at the spaceport.

The 22nd flight to the International Space Station, STS-118 will be the first flight for Endeavour since 2002, and the first mission for Mission Specialist Barbara Morgan, the teacher-turned-astronaut whose association with NASA began more than 20 years ago.

FMI: www.nasa.gov/shuttle