The space
shuttle Discovery rolled out to its Florida launch pad Wednesday, where
engineers will prime the spacecraft for NASA's first manned spaceflight of the
year.
Riding atop
NASA's Apollo-era carrier vehicle, Discovery completed the slow, seven-hour
trek to its seaside launch pad 39A at 12:16 p.m. EST (1716 GMT), bringing it
one step closer to a planned
Feb. 12 blast off from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral,
Fla.
"We had no
issues once we started rolling," NASA spokesperson Allard Beutel told SPACE.com
from the spaceport. "It was a beautiful rollout."
Discovery
will carry a crew of seven astronauts and the last pair of U.S. solar arrays for
the International Space Station when it launches next month. The two expansive
solar wings are the fourth and final set to support the space station's power
grid. They are attached to a girder-like Starboard 6 (S6) segment, the last
piece of the 356-foot (109-meter) main truss that serves as the orbiting
laboratory's backbone.
"The S6
truss is the last major piece of U.S.-built hardware to go to the space
station," Beutel said.
Commanded
by veteran spaceflyer Lee Archambault, Discovery's STS-119 mission is scheduled
to launch at 7:32 a.m. EST (1232 GMT) on Feb. 12 and land about two weeks
later. Four spacewalks are planned to install the space station's new solar
arrays and perform other maintenance work.
Discovery
will also ferry Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata to the International Space
Station, where he'll replace NASA
astronaut Sandra Magnus as a member of the outpost's Expedition 18 crew.
Wakata is
the first long-duration spaceflyer for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
and will oversee the station's Japanese Kibo laboratory among his other flight
engineer duties. Magnus will return to Earth aboard Discovery after spending
more than three months aboard the space station.
Space
shuttle engineers will install Discovery's 32,000-pound (14,514-kg) solar array
truss segment inside the orbiter's payload bay on Saturday. Archambault and his
crew, meanwhile, are due to arrive at the Kennedy Space Center next week for a
launch dress rehearsal, Beutel said.
Discovery's
February launch is the first of five NASA shuttle missions planned for 2009. One
flight will carry astronauts to pay a final service call on the Hubble Space
Telescope, with the other four to bring the decade-old
International Space Station closer to completion.
"Every time
we get to the launch pad, it gets us one step closer to flying the shuttle,"
Beutel said. "This is the beginning of our final push to complete the
International Space Station."
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