Jul 11, 2009 11:38 am US/Eastern
Salem-Born Astronaut Part Of Shuttle Endeavour
BOSTON (WBZ) ―
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Astronaut Christopher Cassidy was born in Salem, attended MIT and Navy prep school in Newport and calls Maine home.
NASA
A New Englander is one of seven astronauts set to launch on NASA's space shuttle Endeavour Sunday night.
Commander Christopher J. Cassidy was born in Salem, Mass., and lives in York, Maine with his wife and three children. He attended MIT and graduated from the Naval Academy Prep School in Newport, Rhode Island.
Cassidy was a Navy SEAL for 10 years. He joined NASA in 2004.
Endeavor's launch was originally scheduled for Saturday, but was pushed back to Sunday night after nine lightning strikes were reported near the pad.
Endeavour should have blasted off to the international space station in mid-June, but was grounded by potentially dangerous leaks of hydrogen gas. Repairs to a misaligned plate on the external fuel tank, which hooks up with a hydrogen vent line, solved the problem.
The shuttle and its crew are set to deliver and install the third and final piece of Japan's $1 billion space station lab, named Kibo, Japanese for hope. The first two sections flew up last year.
Seven shuttle astronauts, including Cassidy, plus six station residents will make for the biggest crowd ever in orbit.
Five spacewalks are planned during the 16-day flight.
NASA has until Tuesday or possibly Wednesday to send up Endeavour before making way for the launch of an unmanned Russian supply ship. If that happened, the shuttle flight would be off until late July.
(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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