STS-127 crew members get hands on familiarization with equipment to be used on the mission.

In the Space Station Processing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, STS-127 crew members get hands-on familiarization with equipment to be used on the mission. They are looking at the hoist of one of two Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency's Visual Equipments, or VE. These are used to support on-orbit cameras. The visual equipment flies on top of the Japanese Experiment Module External Facility, or JEM-EF, and will be installed on orbit to the outer perimeter of the EF. The view is the hoist from the top of the EF. The mission payload includes the Japanese Experiment Module, or JEM, Extended Facility and the Inter-orbit Communication System Extended Facility, or ICS-EF. Equipment familiarization is part of a Crew Equipment Interface Test. The payload will be launched to the International Space Station aboard the space shuttle Endeavour on the STS-127 mission, targeted for launch on May 15, 2009. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett