Space shuttle moved to launch pad for mission

Cape Canaveral (Fla), Nov 10: The space shuttle Discovery was rolled out to its seaside Florida launch pad, bolstering NASA's hopes of an early December lift-off for a mission to continue construction of the International Space Station.

The 4.2-mile (7-km) trek from the shuttle's assembly hangar to the pad began late yesterday under clear skies and cool temperatures.

Discovery reached the launch pad by dawn, and will undergo final preparations for a flight that could begin December 7 at the earliest.

NASA managers had considered launching a day earlier but opted to use the extra 24 hours for additional crew and ground support team training. By shaving a day off the launch date, NASA would have improved the chances of the mission returning to Earth before the end of the year.

The shuttle's computers would fall out of synchronization with ground systems if the ship were in orbit at 12 a m on January 1, prompting program managers to recommend the 12-day mission be postponed into next year if Discovery has not taken off by December 18.

The flight will be NASA's third and final mission of the year. NASA needs to fly 14 shuttle flights by 2010 to complete assembly of the half-built 100-billion dollar space station.

The Discovery crew plans to deliver a small metal truss segment to extend the station's structural backbone. The astronauts will then turn to the complicated task of rewiring the station's electrical and cooling systems.

The work requires careful coordination with ground control teams and the crew aboard the station, which will be left with limited power during the hookups.

Managers are concerned that some of the equipment that needs to work properly has been idle in orbit for six years.

NASA halted station assembly for more than three years while it improved the safety of the shuttle fleet after the shuttle Columbia broke apart in 2003 on re-entry falling insulation foam had knocked a hole in its heat shield on liftoff.

Discovery's five-man, two-woman crew is scheduled to arrive at the Kennedy Space Center on Monday to get ready for launch.

REUTERS