Astronauts arrives at the Space Shuttle launch site for July 13 mission

Astronauts arrives at the Space Shuttle launch site for July 13 mission

NASA is going ahead with their planned Space Shuttle mission to the international space station on July 13. The seven selected astronauts prepared for this mission have arrived at the launch site in Florida for their mission coming this week. This is despite the threat posed by the hurricane Dennis that is passing through the Florida state at this moment.

The crew is lead by the mission commander Eileen Collins and they arrived at the location by a NASA corporate jet just a day ahead of the arrival of the Hurricane Dennis. They were greeted by the NASA officials and the press reporters at the arrival site. Shuttle is just located a few kilometers away from their arrival site and the crew looked excited to be at the location of the launch all set to go.

One of the crewmembers for the mission, Andrew Thomas told the crowd gathered at the runway: “It’s been 2 1/2 years since a crew stood here before you and that’s way too long. It is definitely time that we went back to flight and back to space.” He was supported by the Japanese crewmember Soichi Noguchi and the pilot James Kelly who added: “We’ll light the candle and head back up into space”.

They were scheduled to arrive later today but the trip was moved ahead of schedule because of the arrival of the Hurricane. The countdown for the Space Shuttle launch however begins today. This would be the Space Shuttle’s first mission to space in nearly 2.5 years after the Columbia disaster, which led to death of the entire crew onboard. NASA has worked very hard in the last couple of months to make sure that this launch will be a big success and the safety of the crew is ensured.