Mike Curie/NASA Launch Commentator: This is Shuttle Launch Control at T-3 hours and holding.
About an hour and two minutes remaining in this hold this morning,
from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida inside Firing Room 4.
This has been a rather dynamic evening with the delayed tanking of the external fuel tank.
Operations are progressing and at an accelerated pace in order to catch up and be
ready for our planned launch this morning at 5:40 a.m.
of space shuttle Endeavour on Launch Pad 39A. A launch at 5:40 a.m. will officially be a night launch.
It will be the 33rd night launch in shuttle history, occurring about 45 minutes before sunrise.
Our first night launch was STS-8 on Aug. 30, 1983. And the most recent night launch was STS-119 in March.
Here in Firing Room 4, managers and engineers are assembled, monitoring all
the systems and monitoring the fueling of Endeavour's external tank.
Once again, that operation began late due to some severe weather in the Kennedy Space Center area.
So far, the operation is proceeding per the timeline. We're expecting to reach
LH2 topping mode at about 1:17 a.m. Eastern time.
This is the point at which time we saw a leak during the previous launch attempt at the Ground Umbilical Carrier Plate.
STS-127 Launch Director Pete Nickolenko is overseeing operations here this morning with the team here in
Firing Room 4 and teams throughout the Launch Control Center.
The STS-127 flight crew is up and preparing to board Endeavour later this morning on a slightly
different timeline than originally planned. We are one hour away from picking up the count.
At T-3 hours and holding, this is Shuttle Launch Control.