CAPE
CANAVERAL - The first of six planned space shuttle missions in 2009 kicks off
in earnest this week with Discovery's placement on a launch platform.
Kennedy Space Center
workers early Wednesday are scheduled to roll the orbiter a quarter mile from
its processing hangar to the 52-story Vehicle Assembly Building.
During a weeklong stay
there, the spaceship will be connected to an external tank and twin solid
rocket boosters already stacked on a mobile launcher platform.
"This is the starting
point for all of our shuttle launches," said KSC spokesman Allard Beutel.
"That means the orbiter is a step away from the launch pad."
Discovery is slated to
blast off Feb. 12 on a 14-day mission to install the International Space
Station's final pair of power-generating solar wings.
The shuttle will haul the
11th and final piece of the station's central backbone, a 31,000-pound truss
segment from which two 115-foot solar arrays will be unfurled.
The truss is expected to be
loaded in a canister for transportation to launch pad 39A on Sunday.
On Jan. 14, Discovery is
due to roll out from the assembly building to the seaside launch pad.
The shuttle will use the
external tank and boosters from which Atlantis was removed after its mission to
service
the Hubble Space Telescope was postponed last fall. That mission, the
year's second, is tentatively targeted for mid-May.
Discovery's flight will be
the orbiter's 36th, 125th by a space shuttle and 28th shuttle mission to the
space station.
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