Jessica Rye/Katherine Trinidad
Kennedy Space Center, Fla.
321-867-2468
RELEASE: 06-367
NASA'S SHUTTLE DISCOVERY BEGINS MISSION TO THE SPACE STATION
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The space shuttle Discovery and its
seven-member crew lifted off Saturday from NASA's Kennedy Space
Center at 8:47 p.m. EST on one of the most complex missions ever to
the International Space Station.
Shortly before launch, Discovery's Commander Mark Polansky said he and
his crew were excited to continue assembly of the station, "We look
forward to lighting up the night sky and rewiring ISS."
After hearing of the successful liftoff, Expedition 14 Commander
Michael Lopez-Alegria told Mission Control in Houston "We'll leave
the light on," in anticipation of the space shuttle crew's arrival,
now scheduled for Monday.
Low clouds delayed Discovery's launch on Thursday night. After
standing down on Friday, weather was much better for Saturday's
launch.
During the 12-day mission, designated STS-116, a new structural
component will be added to the station. Shuttle and station crews
will work with ground teams to install the P5 truss. This latest
addition to the station's backbone weighs 4,000 pounds and will
extend the left side of the truss to allow future solar panels to
rotate.
The mission also includes extensive work to reconfigure the station's
electrical and cooling systems from temporary to permanent mode.
During the mission, ground control will shut down and reroute the
station's power in stages so that the astronauts can reconfigure the
power system and make the P4 solar arrays delivered during the last
mission fully operational. This complex operation has never been done
before. Part of an existing solar panel will be retracted to allow
the P4 arrays to track the sun for a full 360 degrees and provide
power to the rest of the station.
As part of these operations, the station's temporary cooling system
will be deactivated and a permanent system will become operational.
The station's newest resident will also be traveling aboard Discovery.
Astronaut Sunita Williams joins the Expedition 14 crew. Thomas
Reiter, a European Space Agency astronaut who has been aboard the
station since July, will return to Earth with the Discovery crew.
Williams is scheduled to spend six months on the station.
Discovery's crew is Polansky, Pilot Bill Oefelein and mission
specialists Bob Curbeam, Joan Higginbotham, Nicholas Patrick,
Williams and Christer Fuglesang, a European Space Agency astronaut.
For the latest information about the STS-116 mission and its crew,
visit:
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