CAPE CANAVERAL - Discovery
will move into Kennedy Space Center's massive assembly building this week,
marking a key milestone in preparations for a planned July 1 launch on NASA's second
post-Columbia shuttle mission.
Secured atop a 76-wheel
transporter, Discovery will be backed out of a nearby hangar about 8 a.m.
Thursday and escorted to the 52-story Vehicle Assembly Building by technicians
and engineers who have readied the orbiter for flight.
"It's always nice when
the vehicle leaves the hangar," said KSC spokeswoman Jessica Rye.
The date and time for the
move was selected after a meeting Monday. It had been planned
for Friday; if all goes well, the move will take place 24 hours ahead of
schedule.
The short trip will cap a
263-day stay in the hangar, one that began Aug. 22 after Discovery was ferried
back to KSC from Edwards Air Force Base in California.
The spaceship landed
at the Mojave Desert military base at the end of NASA's first post-Columbia test flight
and then was flown
back to Florida atop a modified 747 jumbo jet.
Once in the assembly
building, crane operators will hoist Discovery atop a mobile launcher platform
and connect it to an external
tank with two attached solid rocket boosters.
The assembled shuttle
remains scheduled to roll out to launch pad 39B on May 19.
A move to the pad then
would allow NASA to preserve two weeks of leeway in the schedule for a July
1 launch. The launch window will close July 19.
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