Discovery's final voyage today 4:50p EST

Countdown is underway for the six astroanuts aboard the Discovery final voyage to Space in few hours at 4:50p EST from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. The launch was originally scheduled for November.

Discovery has an amazing history and track record that includes:

• 1979 Contract awarded to Rockwell in Downey, CA
• 1983 Delivery to Kennedy Space Center
• 1984 First flight
• 1990 Deployment of the Hubble Space Telescope
• 2000 The 100th Space Shuttle mission
• Return to space after 1986 Challenger and 2003 Columbia tragedy
• 2010 last mission for 15 days traveling over 6.2 miles

Discovery has 352 days in orbit, circled the earth 5,628 times, over 140 million miles and carried 246 crew members!

One of my wishes has been to watch the liftoff of the space shuttle at Kennedy Space Center in person. Today is not that day but I will be watching Discovery's final launch live feed at 4:50p EST with amazement. 

Update on Friday, February 25, 2011 at 4:52PM by Admin

Discovery lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center on Thursday, Feb. 24. at 4:53 p.m

Meet Robonaut 2, astronaut assistant. International spcae station will get its first humanoid robot.

Update on Saturday, February 26, 2011 at 2:35PM by Admin

First time that all the cargo ships from US, Russia, Japan and Europe's ATV are docked to ISS at the same time! To find out whether the ISS is visible from where you live visit human space flight select country and then your city. If ISS is visible the site will give you a star map showing where the ISS is, its path over the sky and the exact time when it can be seen in your city. 

How the International Space Station was assembled from 1998

Comments

[Erica]

Wow, what an incredible body of work the shuttle has. Thanks for sharing, those little known facts. It's a well deserved retirement.