Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Discovery Heading for Launch Pad now

6:45 am today: Discovery rollout to Pad 39-A

The space shuttle Discovery stack is on the move from the vehicle assembly building to her seaside launch pad as NASA inches closer for her launch.

Rollout began at 5:17 am EST this morning, and the space shuttle should arrive at launch pad 39-A late this morning at about 12 noon.

The 3.5-mile journey from the VAB to Pad 39-A normally takes just over six hours to make the journey. Traveling at 1 mph, NASA's mobile launcher platform makes a slow trek so that little vibration is made.

Launch of Discovery is planned for 7:30 am EST on February 12th.

This Monday, the seven-member flight crew of Discovery will be here at Kennedy Space Center for the standard preflight dress rehearsal for prelaunch and launch day activities. Known as TCDT, the crew will arrive on Monday at KSC; and on Wednesday don their launch suits and climb aboard Discovery for a practice countdown.

Discovery mission STS-119 will deliver the final huge set of solar arrays to the international space station.

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