Sunday, June 18, 2006

The mission logo for STS-121.

Discovery a "Go" for launch... At 2 PM (Pacific Daylight Time) on Wednesday, June 28, countdown is set to begin for NASA’s second space shuttle flight since the 2003 Columbia disaster. Liftoff is targeted for 12:49 PM (PDT) on Saturday, July 1st. Here’s hoping that the launch will go virtually flawless (in the sense that only a few small pieces of foam insulating the external fuel tank will be shed during the ascent into orbit) and Discovery has a safe and successful flight. Should mission STS-121 succeed, space shuttle Atlantis is set to launch on August 28th to resume assembly on the International Space Station (on mission STS-115), and space shuttle Discovery (or possibly Endeavour) is set to launch again on STS-116 this December 14. I hope I’m not jinxing it, haha.

STS stands for Space Transportation System (which is the official, nerdy title for the space shuttle), in case you were wondering. Which I hope at least one of you were. Carry on.

The crew of Space Shuttle Discovery poses at Launch Pad 39B with the external fuel tank and a solid rocket booster in the background.
The crew of Space Shuttle Discovery on STS-121.

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