CAPE
CANAVERAL, Fla. - The clock is ticking for NASA's shuttle
Discovery as launch controllers began counting down towards the spacecraft's
planned Dec. 7 launch late Monday.
NASA
controllers reported to their consoles in Firing Room 4 at the Launch Control Center here at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) at 10:30 p.m. EST
(0330 Dec. 5 GMT) today and countdown clock began ticking towards liftoff 30
minutes later.
"Five,
four, three, two, one, and the clock is rolling," said NASA commentator
Bruce Buckingham. "Countdown has begun for NASA's first night time launch
in four years."
Discovery
is slated to blast off on Thursday, Dec. 7 at 9:35:47 p.m. EST (0235:47 Dec. 8
GMT). The T-43 hour countdown includes 27 hours, 36 minutes of built-in hold
time.
Current weather
forecasts predict a 80 percent chance that launch will proceed as scheduled,
although there are some concerns of low clouds and isolated showers.
The
five-man, two-woman STS-116
crew flew
into KSC from Houston yesterday afternoon. In these final days leading up
to the launch, they will be performing final inspection of the hardware and
tools they will use during their 12-day construction mission on the International Space
Station (ISS).
Discovery
commander Mark
Polansky and pilot William
Oefelein are also practicing shuttle landing, said NASA spokesperson Kylie
Clem.
"The
rest of the time is studying the mission and free time," Clem told SPACE.com.
Riding with
Polansky and Oefelein will be mission specialists Nicholas
Patrick, Robert
Curbeam, Joan
Higginbotham, Sunita
Williams and Christer
Fuglesang, a European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut who is also the first
Swede to fly in space.
The STS-116
crew is tasked with rewiring
the electrical grid of the ISS and delivering a new $11
million portside piece of the orbital laboratory. Williams will also
relieve ESA astronaut Thomas
Reiter who has been aboard the station since July.
ISS flight
controllers also successfully performed a 23-minute
rocket burn to boost the orbital laboratory to a higher orbit Monday
afternoon in preparation for docking with the shuttle on Dec. 9. Attempts to do
so last week were cut short due to an unexpected shift in the station's
orientation caused by the installation of new ISS components in September.
A failure
to raise the station's orbit would have cut into the shuttle's launch window,
which currently runs from Dec. 7 to 17 and possibly later if shuttle mission
managers approve Discovery for flight over the end-of-year
rollover.
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