Discovery Space Shuttle On Its Way To The Space Station
The early Monday morning saw another successful launch of Discovery space shuttle from Kennedy Space Center. The space shuttle is on its way towards the International Space Station.
NASA reported that the space shuttle Discovery along with its seven-member crew was launched at 6:21 am on Monday from Kennedy and is at present in the orbit above the Earth.
The space ship is on a 13-day mission which has been officially named as STS-13. During this mission, the astronauts will carry out three spacewalks.
They will also link up with the ISS to offer the Leonardo multi-purpose logistics module that will comprise of science racks which can be utilized in the varied labs all over the space station.
The module will also include new sleeping quarters and other provisions.
As per the space agency, the astronauts will also be working on to gather a Japanese science experiment and switch off a gyro assembly on behalf of the space station's truss structure.
U.S. Navy Captain Alan Poindexter, 48, of Rockville, MD, is holding the commanding position this time for the crew members in Discovery. Three of the out of the seven crewmembers, pilot Jim Dutton, mission specialist Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger, and mission specialist Naoko Yamakazi of the Japanese Space Agency, are on their first flights into space station.
The space shuttles have only three more flights lined up prior to their retirement at the end of the year 2010. The Obama Administration has laid down a plan under which the NASA will be allowed to successfully outsource transportation of crew and supplies to the ISS through private launch contractors.
U.S. President Obama also asked to cancel the Constellation program. Under this program, the astronauts would have been sent to the moon by the year 2020 in a new space shuttle which would be made from the Orion crew capsule and Ares rocket.
However, critics comprising of senators in the U.S. states where NASA is a major player have shunned down Obama's idea as they feel that this would only put the country on the back burner in the space race.
