Shuttle Atlantis crew departs for launch pad

Atlantis' crew boards today for the ride to shuttle Atlantis. (NASA)

As NASA's launch team watches the weather, a crew of four astronauts suited for flight and departed for their spacecraft this morning for the final mission of the space shuttle program.

Low clouds and a chance for more rain has the current weather chances at only 30% favorable for today.

The crew departed their living quarters at 7:36 a.m. EDT, to make the twenty-minute ride over to their ocean side launch pad to board the shuttle Atlantis.

Atlantis commander Chris Ferguson leads this last shuttle crew are all space veterans and include pilot Doug Hurley, and mission specialists Rex Walheim and Sandy Magnus.

The crew were awoken today at 4:30 a.m. EDT in the crew quarters of the operations & checkout building located 10 miles from the launch pad. An hour later, the crew headed over for breakfast, their last one on earth for thirteen days.

The crew later received a weather briefing before suiting up in their orange partial pressure suits at 6:50 a.m.

NASA launch director Mike Leinbach received a full weather briefing as the crew departed for the launch pad.

The launch team will take the count down to the T- 9 minute hold, and perform a final weather check to determine if today is a good day to fly.