14 DAY TRIAL // Officials at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), in Cape Canaveral, Florida, announce that the space shuttle Discovery will make its finally rollout journey to the seaside Launch Pad 39A.
After about three decades of continuous service, the orbiter fleet is being retired, and this is to be Discovery's last voyage to space. It is headed for the International Space Station (ISS).
Today, September 20, the shuttle will be taken out of the KSC Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB), and then carried via the Crawler-Transporter vehicle to its launch facility.
Given the special nature of the occasion, officials at NASA allowed hundreds of KSC employees, engineers and other workers to bring their families to see the November 1 launch.
The rollout maneuver, which usually lasts well over six hours, is scheduled to begin at around 8 pm EDT (0000 GMT), the KSC announces.
“It's a small way to give back to the people who have given so much to the space shuttle program over the years,” says Allard Beutel, a spokesman for the agency.
“It's also a way for people to show their families all their hard work. This is where they've been spending all the hours of their time,” he adds, referring to the fact that hundreds of people are expected to show up for the rollout maneuver tonight.
“A lot of these people have worked on the shuttle program for years but have never had the chance to take a picture in front of it,” Beutel says of the event.
The six astronauts that will make up the STS-133 crew will be present at the maneuver as well, and will take questions from those in attendance.
STS-133 will begin on November 1 if there are no delays, and will run for about 11 days. During this time, Discovery will make its 39th space trip, Space reports.
It will carry a new logistics module on the ISS, as well as the Robonaut-2, a robotic payload that was designed by NASA and General Motors to assist the six members of the permanent ISS crew.
Discovery is now the oldest shuttle still operating. After it returns, only an additional mission will be flown to the ISS, by Endeavor. The STS-134 mission will take place in February 2011.
At this time, government officials, Congress and NASA are discussing the possibility of conducting yet another shuttle flight beyond Endeavor's.
If approved, the plan would see Atlantis launching to the ISS in June 2011.