CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - NASA's shuttle Discovery and its seven-astronaut
crew are poised to rocket spaceward this afternoon carrying the largest
laboratory ever built for the International Space Station.
Discovery is counting down toward a 5:02 p.m. EDT (2102 GMT) liftoff from
a seaside launch pad here at NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC). The seven
crewmembers of the shuttle's STS-124 mission are planning to deliver
Japan's $1 billion Kibo laboratory module - a room the size of a large tour bus
- to the International Space Station (ISS).
Veteran astronaut Mark Kelly will command the planned 14-day
mission, leading five rookies and one other veteran spaceflyer, mission
specialist Mike Fossum, to the orbital laboratory. The first-timers include
pilot Ken Ham and mission specialists Karen Nyberg, Ron Garan
and Greg Chamitoff, as well as Japanese astronaut
Akihiko Hoshide of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). Kelly said
he's not worried about any lack of experience.
"They have experience, it's just not experience in space yet, but
they're going to get that on flight day one," he said in a preflight interview.
"We will get everything done in a professional manner, they're all very highly
trained, and it's not something I even really think about... We've got a
complicated, busy mission ahead of us."
Mission managers are hopeful that Discovery will be able to launch today
as planned. There is currently an 80 chance of good weather for today's liftoff
attempt, shuttle weather officer Kathy Winters said on Friday.
"Right now the weather overall is looking promising," Winters said. "The
first day [Saturday] is the best day weather-wise."
If the space shuttle does not blast off today, the weather forecast
deteriorates for subsequent launch opportunities on Sunday and Monday, she
said.
Packed mission
While in space, Discovery's STS-124 astronauts plan to perform three
spacewalks outside the station to set up the new Kibo lab and activate its
robotic arm, the Japanese Remote Manipulator System. They will also move Kibo's
smaller
attic-like module from its temporary station to attach it to the new
37-foot (11 meter) main module.
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Hoshide will serve as the
local expert on Kibo's
ins and outs while the crew installs the ISS's new addition.
"An exciting mission is coming up," he said upon arriving in Florida on
Wednesday. "I'd just like to thank all the hard work that all the Japanese
people have been doing on the Japanese module. It's going to be a great mission
and very exciting, especially for the Japanese people."
Discovery's flight will be NASA's third shuttle trip this year, and the
second of three missions to assemble Japan's entire 15.9-ton Kibo facility,
whose name means "hope" in Japanese. The lab's storage
module arrived during a previous March shuttle mission, and a February flight
installed Europe's Columbus laboratory. A third Kibo mission, set to fly in
2009, will deliver a porch-like exterior platform for external space
experiments.
One of the astronauts slated to launch today will swap places with a
current ISS crewmember and stay on for a long duration stint. Chamitoff will
relieve American astronaut Garrett Reisman as a flight engineer for the space
station's Expedition 17 crew. Reisman is set return to Earth aboard Discovery
on June 14, while Chamitoff is currently due home during a planned November
shuttle flight.
"I feel very lucky to be a part of this crew and a part of this
mission," Chamitoff said on Wednesday. "The assembly and attachment of the
Japanese Experiment Module to the ISS is going to be a real historic turning
point for Japan... It's also a landmark point for NASA, because after this point
we have the operations with all the different international partners."
Discovery's launch will also represent a landmark flight for NASA's overhaul
of the space shuttle external fuel tanks since the Columbia disaster. After
that shuttle's heat shield was fatally damaged by falling debris from its
external tank during launch, the agency redesigned the tanks for safety.
Discovery's trip will be the first to fly with an external tank built from the
ground up with the new safety features in place.
A few notable recent additions to Discovery's payload will also mark the
flight.
Onboard the shuttle is a replacement pump for the space
station's broken toilet, which is currently working only sporadically. NASA
also packed away a toy action figure of the Disney-Pixar character Buzz
Lightyear from the movie "Toy Story," as part of an educational partnership
with Disney. The doll will be used to demonstrate the laws of physics in flight
to get kids interested in science and exploration, NASA and Disney
representatives said.
NASA will broadcast the planned launch of Discovery's
STS-124 mission live on NASA TV, beginning at 12:00 p.m. EDT (1600 GMT) on
Saturday. Click here for
SPACE.com's shuttle mission updates and NASA TV feed.
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