Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Discovery roll out




The roll out of Discovery happend on Friday, May 19. I'm just catchin' up.
Space Shuttle Discovery's 4.2-mile journey from the Vehicle Assembly Building to Launch Pad 39B is complete! The move brings NASA one step closer to the STS-121 mission, targeted for launch no earlier than July 1.

Mounted on the Mobile Launcher Platform and carried by the mammoth crawler-transporter, Discovery emerged from the assembly building at 12:45 p.m. EDT. The "stack" rolled along at less than one mile an hour, and arrived at the launch pad early Friday evening.

This mission will continue the evaluation of flight safety procedures, including shuttle inspection and repair techniques. It also will deliver more supplies and cargo for future station expansion.

Steve Lindsey will command the mission, flying with pilot Mark Kelly, spacewalkers Mike Fossum and Piers Sellers and mission specialists Stephanie Wilson and Lisa Nowak. European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Reiter is also part of the crew and will remain on the station for several months. Reiter's arrival will give the station its first three-person crew since May 4, 2003.

2 comments:

J... said...

When is the expected time of launch? Cool pictures.

Fearless Leader Sue said...

Hi Jerry,
The launch date is tentatively on July 1st 2006. I plan to live blog it. I have more roll out pictures from a friend of mine. A co-worker's brother is on the NASA Shuttle Imaging team. I'll post them later today. Thanks for reading my blog.