Space Shuttle Discovery Heads for ISS

Discovery and its seven astronauts have a tight schedule that calls for placing the new Harmony segment to the International Space Station.

Photo courtesy: NASA

(CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.) - NASA officials and launch managers were pleased Tuesday following a clean countdown and flawless launch of space shuttle Discovery from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Launch Director Mike Leinbach said the launch team at NASA's Kennedy Space Center was able to study a potential problem of ice buildup without jeopardizing the shuttle while still launching on time.

"It was one of the cleanest countdowns we've had since I've been launch director," Leinbach said.

Discovery and its seven astronauts have a tight schedule that calls for placing the new Harmony segment to the International Space Station, moving a tower of solar arrays already in space to a new location and overseeing the station crew rotation that will see Discovery astronaut Dan Tani and station resident Clayton Anderson switch places.

"(There is) just a tremendous set of challenges in front of us," said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for Space Operations.

There won't be much time to savor the liftoff, though, because preparations are already under way to get Atlantis over to the launch pad for a Dec. 6 launch.

"This is exactly what the (launch) teams have trained multiple years for," Gerstenmaier said.