KSC-99pp0468

At the 195-foot level of Launch Pad 39B, STS-96 Mission Specialists Valery Ivanovich Tokarev and Julie Payette, plus Pilot Rick Douglas Husband, inspect the slidewire basket used for emergency egress. The training is part of Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test (TCDT) activities, which also provide the crew with simulated countdown exercises and opportunities to inspect the mission payloads in the orbiter's payload bay. Other crew members taking part in the TCDT are Commander Kent V. Rominger and Mission Specialists Tamara E. Jernigan (Ph.D.), Daniel Barry (M.D., Ph.D.), and Ellen Ochoa (Ph.D.). Scheduled for liftoff on May 20 at 9:32 a.m., STS-96 is a logistics and resupply mission for the International Space Station, carrying such payloads as a Russian crane, the Strela; a U.S.-built crane; the Spacehab Oceaneering Space System Box (SHOSS), a logistics items carrier; and STARSHINE, a student-led experiment