CAPTION GOES HERE In this picture made available by NASA, the last crew of the space shuttle Endeavour stands together on Launch Pad 39A in front of its external fuel tank and solid rocket boosters at the Kennedy Space Center. (AP Photo/NASA, Kim Shiflett)
UPDATE:
NASA abruptly called off space shuttle Endeavour's final launch Friday because of a puzzling heater failure in a critical power unit, disappointing huge crowds converging on the area for the afternoon liftoff.
President Barack Obama and his family were planning to watch Endeavour blast off. It would have been the first time in NASA history that a sitting president and his family witnessed a launch. Already at Cape Canaveral for the liftoff was wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, wife of the shuttle's commander.
Launch commentator George Diller said the next try likely would be Monday at the earliest. Officials huddled in launch control, discussing a path forward.
"They are trying to assess what all is going to be required and how much time we're going to need," Diller said. "We still don't know what's wrong or why these multiple heater failures occurred."
Commander Mark Kelly and his crew were already on their way to the launch pad, when NASA announced the delay. The astronauts' van did a U-turn at the launch control center, and returned the astronauts to crew quarters.
The first family had not yet arrived in Florida when launch was canceled.
Around noon, NASA reported that two heaters on an auxiliary power unit had failed. Engineers could not understand the problem and were uncomfortable about proceeding with the 3:47 p.m. launch. An electrical short was suspected.
Three power units provide hydraulic pressure to the main engines at liftoff and to the rudder and speed brake during landing. They are crucial components; each must be working perfectly before launch.
The news took guests by surprise as well as journalists who were outside watching the astrovan drive by. There was confusion when the van pulled into the driveway in front of launch control, rather than head straight for the pad three miles away. Then the official announcement came over the speakers.
Just a few hours from liftoff, NASA fueled space shuttle Endeavour for one last ride into orbit Friday as hundreds of thousands of visitors began to converge on the coast for prime viewing spots.
The launch team began loading more than a half-million gallons of fuel into Endeavour at dawn, moments after royal wedding vows were exchanged across the ocean between Prince William and Kate Middleton in London.
Commanding Endeavour on NASA's next-to-last shuttle flight is Navy Capt. Mark Kelly, who is married to Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. She was to watch the launch from Kennedy Space Center. Giffords was shot in the head in January and left rehab behind to attend the afternoon liftoff.
President Barack Obama also will attend with his wife and two daughters - the first time in NASA history that a sitting president and his family will have witnessed a launch.
Launch time was 3:47 p.m. Forecasters put the odds of good weather at 70 percent; low clouds and stiff crosswind were the main concern.
Endeavour is bound for the International Space Station.
For its last hurrah, it's carrying one of the most expensive payloads in NASA's 30-year shuttle history: a $2 billion particle physics detector that will seek out antimatter and dark energy across the universe. Many in and outside NASA say the experiment, if successful, could validate science operations at the decade-old orbiting lab.
Kelly and his all-male crew - all six of them space veterans - saw their families for the last time, face to face, Thursday. They awoke a little before sunrise Friday as launch controllers gathered for the fueling operation.
"Watched 'Patriot' with the crew. Bonding before a big day," pilot Gregory Johnson said in a Twitter update late Thursday.
As the sun rose, recreational vehicles already lined the Banana River to the south, with a wide open view of the launch site.
As many as 750,000 people were expected to crowd nearby coastal communities. For days, police have been warning of massive traffic delays. Schools planned to dismiss early.
The space center itself, meanwhile, was bracing for 45,000 guests, including more than three dozen members of Congress, at least two former NASA administrators, and a score of high-level academic and space industry officials. The California Science Center in Los Angeles - Endeavour's retirement home - also was going to be represented.
NASA is ending the shuttle program this summer, after one last trip by Atlantis. Obama has put the space agency on a path to asteroids and Mars, ultimately, while encouraging private companies to take over Earth-to-orbit operations.
In the meantime, U.S. astronauts will keep using Russian Soyuz rockets to get to the space station.
Once Atlantis flies, it will be at least three years before America launches astronauts from their home soil again.
The fuel tank that will help propel the space shuttle Endeavour into orbit is already battle-scarred from some rough shaking thanks to Hurricane Katrina.
The 10-year-old tank has 103 patches. The tank was in a building in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005. The building's roof partially collapsed, causing more than 100 nicks in foam and one piece of dented metal.
The tank now has a special emblem for surviving the storm.
Tank maker Lockheed Martin and NASA spent eight months examining and repairing the massive external tank, making it ready for Friday's launch. It will be the oldest fuel tank to launch.
But NASA and Lockheed Martin tank engineers say it is fixed and perfectly safe.
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