November 14, 2008 NASA fuels Endeavour for tonight's launch Play video

(NECN/ABC) - NASA began fueling space shuttle Endeavour on Friday for an evening flight to the international space station and a home remodeling project by astronauts doubling as kitchen and bathroom installers.

The weather was promising: Forecasters said there was just a 30 percent chance that rain or clouds would interfere with the 7:55p.m. liftoff.

Endeavour and its seven-person crew will spend 15 days in orbit, including Thanksgiving. The shuttle held enough irradiated turkey dinners for everyone, with plenty of space-style candied yams, corn bread stuffing and cranberry-apple dessert.

spaceflight.nasa.gov

Filling the payload bay were thousands of pounds of equipment for the space station - enough to allow NASA to double the size of the space station's three-person crew by June.

Among the additions: two bedrooms, a bathroom, kitchenette, exercise machine and NASA's revolutionary new recycling system designed to turn urine and condensation into drinking water.

All this will transform the space station into a five-bedroom, two-bath, two-kitchen home capable of housing six residents.

The shuttle crew also will take on a lube job on the orbiting outpost.

A massive joint that rotates half of the space station's solar wings toward the sun has been jammed for more than a year; it's clogged with metal grit from grinding parts. The spacewalking astronauts will spend

most of their time working on that joint and also add extra grease to a twin joint that is working fine - in order to keep it that way.

Kevin Oliver reports.

*Material from the Associated Press used in this report*