Discovery is set to blast off to the International Space Station on Thursday after months of delays.
NASA announced the space shuttle Discovery is scheduled to begin an 11-day
mission to the International Space Station (ISS) with a launch at 4:50 p.m. EST on Thursday, Feb. 24, from the
space agency's Kennedy Space
Center in Florida.
Mission STS-133 is currently scheduled as
Discovery's final flight.
Discovery's launch date was announced Friday at the conclusion of a flight
readiness review at Kennedy. During the meeting, senior NASA and contractor
managers assessed the risks associated with the mission and determined the
shuttle and station's equipment, support systems and personnel are ready.
The six astronauts for the mission will deliver the Permanent Multipurpose
Module (PMM) to the station. The PMM was converted from the multipurpose logistics
module Leonardo and will provide additional storage for the station crew.
Experiments in such fields as fluid physics, materials science, biology and
biotechnology may be conducted inside the module.
The PMM also carries Robonaut 2, the first humanlike robot in space, which
will become a permanent resident of the station. In addition, the flight will
deliver critical spare parts and the Express Logistics Carrier 4, an external
platform that holds large equipment.
STS-133 Commander Steve Lindsey and his
crew arrived at Kennedy on Sunday for final launch preparations. Joining
Lindsey are Pilot Eric Boe and mission specialists Alvin Drew, Steve Bowen,
Michael Barratt and Nicole Stott. Bowen and Drew will conduct two spacewalks to
install new components and perform maintenance.
Discovery's launch will occur 6 hours after the planned docking of the
European Space Agency's Automated Transfer Vehicle-2 "Johannes
Kepler" to the space station. STS-133
is the first mission planned for 2011. It is Discovery's 39th flight and 35th
shuttle mission to the station. There are two other flights planned before the
shuttle retires this year.
The Space Shuttle Program baselined the STS-135
mission for a target launch date of June 28. It is NASA's intent to fly the
mission with orbiter Atlantis carrying the Raffaello multipurpose logistics
module to deliver supplies, logistics and spare parts to the ISS. The mission
also will fly a system to investigate the potential for robotically refueling
existing spacecraft and return a failed ammonia pump module to help NASA better
understand the failure mechanism and improve pump designs for future systems.
In late December, the agency's Space Operations Mission Directorate
requested the shuttle and ISS programs take the necessary steps to maintain the
capability to fly Atlantis on the STS-135
mission. The Authorization Act of 2010 directs NASA to conduct the mission, and
baselining the flight enables the program to begin preparations for the
mission. The operation would be the 135th and final space shuttle flight.