STS-96 Mission Specialists Valery Ivanovich Tokarev Julie Payette and Ellen Ochoa Ph.D.

Making their way to the slidewire basket at Launch Pad 39B are (left to right) ) STS-96 Mission Specialists Valery Ivanovich Tokarev, Julie Payette and Ellen Ochoa (Ph.D.). They are practicing emergency egress procedures before a launch. The training is part of Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test (TCDT) activities, which also provides 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, Pilot Rick Douglas Husband, and Mission Specialists Tamara E. Jernigan (Ph.D.) and Daniel Barry (M.D., Ph.D.). Payette is with the Canadian Space Agency and Tokarev is with the Russian Space Agency. STS-96, scheduled for liftoff on May 20 at 9:32 a.m., 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