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Space shuttle Discovery rolls out to the launch pad BY JUSTIN RAY SPACEFLIGHT NOW Posted: May 3, 2008 With four weeks until its planned launch to haul the Japanese science laboratory module up to the space station, shuttle Discovery traveled overnight from the Vehicle Assembly Building to pad 39A.
An Apollo-era transporter carried the shuttle stack along the rock-covered crawlerway leading to the oceanfront launch complex at barely a walking pace. Powerful hydraulics jacked up the platform, keeping it level as the crawler ascended the pad's concrete incline in the predawn darkness. A laser alignment system helped technicians precisely position the platform, then the crawler lowered it onto the pad's pedestals to complete Discovery's rollout at 6:06 a.m. EDT Saturday morning.
Shortly after the sun rose, technicians moved the pad's swing arms into place as the transporter retreated away. The giant gantry-like rotating service structure then maneuvered to enclose Discovery in preparation for the opening of the shuttle's payload bay doors. The mission's payload -- the Kibo laboratory -- has been waiting inside the gantry's cleanroom for the past few days. It is scheduled for installation into the Discovery's cargo bay on Monday. "We are excited to have Kibo on this flight, proud to have it on Discovery," Stilson said. Liftoff of Discovery on its 35th spaceflight is targeted for Saturday, May 31 at 5:02 p.m. EDT.
"We've actually got seven days of contingency in this flow, which is great," Stilson said. "Our real goal is try to give everybody the Memorial Day holiday weekend off...That would be wonderful, give everybody a nice break, and then jump right into launch countdown for our Saturday launch." Countdown clocks are scheduled to begin ticking at 7 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, May 28. The loading of Discovery's electricity-producing fuel cells would occur on Thursday, May 29, followed by retraction of the rotating service structure at 8:30 p.m. EDT on Friday, May 30, and filling the external fuel tank with a half-million gallons of cryogenic propellants shortly after 7:30 a.m. EDT on launch day, Saturday, May 31. Commander Mark Kelly leads Discovery's seven-person crew that includes pilot Ken Ham, mission specialists Karen Nyberg, Ron Garan, Mike Fossum, Akihiko Hoshide and station-bound astronaut Greg Chamitoff.
"It's a huge module. It's beautiful, very well engineered and built. It's the largest single module that we're launching up to the space station and so our whole mission is about getting that laboratory installed on the station," Fossum said. "It's pretty heavy, 32,000 pounds, longer than the U.S. lab, more systems' racks, more experiment racks. It's its own little spacecraft in the sense that it has an environmental system, electrical system, its own computer system, its own robotic arm," Kelly said. "I'm hopeful that over years that laboratory produces significant discoveries in chemistry, physics, material science, life sciences. It certainly has that potential and I hope one day to be able to look at some new invention or new discovery that came from the laboratory that my crew installed on space station. That would be a great thing so I'm looking forward to that."
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VIDEO:
TIME-LAPSE OF GANTRY ENCLOSING DISCOVERY 