spacetoday.net: Countdown begins for shuttle launch

Posted: Tue, Nov 27, 2001, 1:49 PM ET (1849 GMT)
STS-108 patch

The countdown for Thursday night's launch of the shuttle Endeavour started on schedule Monday night. Endeavour is scheduled to launch on mission STS-108 at 7:41 pm EST Thursday (0041 GMT Friday) from pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center. Latest weather forecasts call for a 60 percent chance of acceptable weather conditions at the time of launch. The primary purpose of STS-108 is to deliver the Expedition Four crew of Yuri Onufrienko, Carl Walz, and Daniel Bursch to the station, and to return to Earth the Expedition Three crew of Frank Culbertson, Vladimir Dezhurov, and Mikhail Turin, who are currently on the station. Two members of the STS-108 crew, Linda Godwin and Daniel Tani, will perform an EVA while Endeavour is docked to the station to do several miscellaneous tasks. The 10 day, 19 hour mission will end with a landing at the Kennedy Space Center on the afternoon of December 10.