14 DAY TRIAL // The first step towards America's first space flight since the Columbia tragedy has begun at 1:58 a.m. ET. The shuttle Discovery is being moved to pad 39B at the Florida launch complex, by using a special machine, called Crawler-Transporter, which is able to reach a top speed of around one mile per hour.
Discovery has been kept in the Kennedy Space Center's assembly building for the past few weeks, where it has been fitted with a new fuel tank, which has an additional heater, and improved rocket boosters.
This is a test mission for NASA, because the crew of Discovery will be the first one to test the shuttle's new safety features, resulted from the investigation of Columbia's tragic accident. The crew's destination is the International Space Station, where the astronauts will spend 12 days. And they're not going there alone, as they're bringing along the Italian module Raffaello, which must be attached to the station.
If Discovery misses its window of opportunity, between July 13-31, NASA will have to postpone the mission until mid-September.