KSC-05pd-0515

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. - Suspended from an overhead crane in the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, the orbiter Discovery is lowered toward the Solid Rocket Booster and External Tank (seen below) already stacked on the top of the Mobile Launcher Platform (MLP). After Discovery has been mated to the External Tank_Solid Rocket Booster assembly on the MLP and all umbilicals have been connected, workers will perform an electrical and mechanical verification of the mated interfaces to verify all critical vehicle connections. A Shuttle interface test is performed using the launch processing system to verify Space Shuttle vehicle interfaces and Space Shuttle vehicle-to-ground interfaces. In approximately one week, Space Shuttle Discovery will be ready for rollout to Launch Pad 39B for Return to Flight mission STS-114. The launch window for STS-114 is May 15 to June 3.