14 DAY TRIAL // NASA is proud to announce that it managed to successfully launch the space shuttle Discovery in one of the last few missions of the Shuttle Program. The spacecraft took off early on Monday morning from Launch Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The seven astronauts onboard separated from the ground at 6:21 am EDT (1021 GMT), in one of the rare instances when the shuttle takes off before dawn. With Discovery already in orbit, only three other shuttle flights remain.
For this flight, the spacecraft was laden with supplies, spare parts, food, water and scientific equipment. With only so few shuttle flights remaining, the new mission, STS-131, is of vital importance for the future of the International Space Station (ISS) over the coming years. Plans have been set in place that would see the project get funded until at least 2020, but the problem is that, with the retirement of the shuttles scheduled for September, or early 2011 at the latest, there will be no more vehicles capable of taking such a large cargo into space.
This means that all major spare parts need to be delivered until the Program is concluded, later this year. The station must be outfitted with replacements for nearly all major, vital components, and it is the job of the five shuttle flights that were scheduled for 2010 to ensure this becomes a reality. For the STS-131 mission, Discovery is delivering some 17,000 pounds (7,711 kilograms) of equipment in orbit. “It is time for you to rise into orbit. Good luck and Godspeed, “ Pete Nickolenko, the NASA test director, radioed to the astronauts aboard the shuttle before take-off. “We'll see you in a few weeks. Let's do it!” Alan Poindexter replied. He is the commander of the new flight.
On April 12, while Discovery will fly hundreds of miles above the planet's surface, docked to the ISS, NASA will be celebrating the 29th anniversary of the Shuttle Program, due for termination this year. “Well, it's disappointing. The shuttle has been an incredible machine. It's done so many things for the space program that its legacy is well understood by most. But I am privileged to be able to say that I've flown both on the shuttle and on the station,” said before the STS-131 mission began Clayton Anderson, an astronaut on Discovery, quoted by Space.