NASA Fuels Space Shuttle to Launch on Super Bowl Sunday

This adventure was

updated Feb. 7 at 4:09 a.m. ET.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.

– NASA fueled the amplitude shuttle Endeavour for the mother of all Super Bowl

pregame shows – a predawn alpha on Sunday that is accepted to be the last

night barrage of an orbiter ever.

Endeavour and a crew

of six

astronauts are slated barrage against the International Amplitude Base from a

seaside pad actuality at NASA's Kennedy Amplitude Center. Ascent is set for 4:39 a.m.

EST (0939 GMT), about 14 hours afore the Indianapolis Colts and New Orleans

Saints bang off Super Bowl 44 in South Florida.

"It's activity to be a

special day," said shuttle barrage administrator Mike Leinbach.

"We're activity to barrage Sunday morning and we're activity to watch the big game

Sunday night."

Despite a promising

weather forecast, which predicted an 80 percent adventitious of bright skies, NASA has

been aggressive a thick, low billow band that has been aggressive the planned

liftoff. If the barrage is delayed, NASA will acquiescently skip the Super Bowl to get

Endeavour accessible to fly on Monday.

"We're not activity to

change our affairs based on the Super Bowl, frankly," Leinbach

said, abacus that tomorrow's bold is not the aboriginal – or the aftermost – football

championship game. "So there accept been absolutely a few, and there will apparently be

more."

Fueling operations

began a bit backward due to a annihilate with accessories on Endeavour's barrage pad

gantry. NASA began pumping super-cold aqueous oxygen and aqueous hydrogen

propellant into the shuttle's 15-story alien catchbasin at about 7:47 p.m. EST

(0047 GMT).

Nighttime launch

Endeavour's planned

13-day mission is the aboriginal of NASA's bristles final

shuttle missions afore the amplitude bureau retires its crumbling orbiter fleet

later this year. It is NASA's aftermost above architecture job to body the

11-year-old station.

The shuttle will

deliver a new allowance to the base forth with a dome-shaped ascertainment portal

lined with windows. They will be installed during three spacewalks by the

astronauts, who will be afterward an brief assignment shift.

The predawn shuttle

launch is additionally accepted to be the aftermost anytime to bang off in darkness.

"It should be

spectacular," said Endeavour administrator George Zamka,

who will accomplish his additional cruise to amplitude on the mission. [How to see

the shuttle launch.]

At liftoff,

Endeavour's accompanying solid rocket boosters will ablaze up the night sky, Zamka

said. That's the aboriginal affair Florida skywatchers will

see. The cavernous barrage of the shuttle's rocket engines will ability the crowds a

short time afterwards as Endeavour climbs into the morning sky.

"It's activity to light

up the arena around," he said. "You should be able to see it from as far as

the Carolinas, I think, if the skies

are clear. It should be a admirable sight." In fact, experts say the shuttle

could be arresting from as far abroad as New York if the skies are bright enough.

Set to launch

spaceward on Endeavour with Zamka are shuttle

pilot Terry Virts and mission specialists

Kathryn Hire, Stephen Robinson, Robert Behnken and Nick

Patrick. All are adept spaceflyers with

the barring of Virts, who is authoritative his first

spaceflight.

Space apartment and

windows

Zamka's five-man, one-woman

crew will bear the station's new Tranquility

module and a seven-window ascertainment aperture dubbed the Cupola. Once

they're installed, the $100 billion base will be about 98 percent complete.

Construction began in 1998.

Tranquility is a new

$382 actor allowance advised to abode the station's activity abutment and exercise

gear, as able-bodied as a automatic arm ascendancy station. The Cupola is a $27.2 million

dome with six windows abiding about a ample axial aperture for optimum

viewing of the Earth and space.

Both Tranquility and

the Cupola were congenital by the European Amplitude Bureau (ESA), which has beatific more

than 100 bodies to appear watch Endeavour barrage their accomplishment into space.

"It's a lot like a

baby growing up, a adolescent abrogation the house," said ESA amplitude base program

manager Bernardo Patti.

Endeavour's flight

comes beneath than a anniversary afterwards President Barack Obama ordered NASA to atom its

current plan to alter the shuttle agile with new Orion aircraft and their

Ares rockets to accelerate American astronauts into amplitude and on to the moon.

 Instead, the

administration appear a 2011 account appeal for NASA that would set aside

funding to advance new technologies and abutment commercially congenital spacecraft

that could accelerate astronauts aback to the moon – or to asteroids or Mars – faster

than the old path.

Shuttle officials

said the abolitionist about-face has larboard some workers in shock, but they are still

focused on the near-term ambition of launching

Endeavour safely.

"It's affectionate of one of

those uncertainties about area we're activity to go next," said Mike Moses,

NASA's shuttle barrage affiliation manager.

Sunday's barrage will

mark the 34th flight for Endeavour and is NASA's 130th shuttle mission since

its reusable amplitude planes began ablution in 1981.

"It's activity to be a

beautiful launch. You'll be able to see it all the way up the East Coast and

we're attractive advanced to it," Leinbach said.

"The aggregation is energized. We're accessible to go."

• NASA's

  Final Night Shuttle Barrage Arresting From Eastern U.S.

• Video

  - Behind the Scenes of Endeavour's STS-130 Mission

• Images

  - Amplitude Shuttle's Midnight Launch

SPACE.com is

providing complete advantage of Endeavour's STS-130 mission to the International

Space Base with Managing Editor Tariq Malik in Cape

Canaveral and Staff Writer Clara Moskowitz in New

York. Click here for shuttle

mission updates and a articulation to NASA TV. Live advantage begins at 11:30 p.m. ET.

• Original Story: NASA Fuels Amplitude Shuttle to Barrage on Super Bowl Sunday

SPACE.com offers affluent and acute agreeable about amplitude science, biking and analysis as able-bodied as astronomy, technology, business account and more. The armpit boasts a array of accepted appearance including our space angel of the day and added space pictures,space videos, Top 10s, Trivia, podcasts and Amazing Images submitted by our users. Join our community, assurance up for our free newsletters and annals for our RSS Feeds today!