The space
shuttle Discovery moved a step closer to launch early Saturday as NASA engineers
hauled the spacecraft into a massive hangar to join its fuel tank and twin
rocket boosters.
Discovery
made the short morning move from its processing building to the cavernous,
52-story Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape
Canaveral, Fla., to prepare for its planned May 31 launch.
The shuttle's
seven-astronaut crew, commanded by veteran spaceflyer Mark Kelly, will deliver
Kibo - a massive
Japanese laboratory the size of a tour bus - to the International Space Station
during a planned 13-day mission.
Engineers rolled
Discovery out of its processing facility atop a 76-wheel transporter at 7:17
a.m. EDT (1117 GMT) and into the Vehicle Assembly Building at about 8:05 a.m.
EDT (1205 GMT), where engineers will hoist it into a vertical position for
external tank attachment. The move occurred two days earlier than planned due
to swift work by shuttle workers, NASA officials said.
"That's
usually a pretty good sign when you can gain some time in the schedule," NASA
spokesperson Allard Beutel told SPACE.com. "They just didn't encounter a
lot of problems and things have been going extremely well."
The extra
two days will give shuttle workers more flexibility should they encounter any
unexpected issues later, Beutel added.
Discovery
is slated to roll out to its Pad 39A launch site at 12:01 a.m. EDT (0401 GMT)
on May 3, where shuttle workers will prepare it for a planned 5:02 p.m. EDT
(0902 GMT) liftoff on May 31.
During
their mission, Kelly and his crew will install the 37-foot (11-meter) Kibo
laboratory, relocate its attic-like
storage module delivered on an earlier flight and swap out one member of
the space station's crew. Two spacewalks are planned for the mission, NASA
said.
Discovery
astronauts will perform a full dress rehearsal of their launch day on May 9.
Kibo's
delivery will mark the second laboratory added to the space station this year.
Astronauts installed Europe's
Columbus laboratory during a February shuttle mission, with a March flight
delivering Kibo's storage module and a Canadian-built
maintenance robot.
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