KSC-05PD-1920

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. - In the early morning hours at NASA Kennedy Space Center’s Shuttle Landing Facility, the orbiter Discovery is suspended within the mate_demate device after the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, a modified Boeing 747, has rolled away from beneath it. Visible on the orbiter is the tail cone that covers the main engines during the ferry flight. Discovery was returned to Kennedy Space Center on a ferry flight from Edwards Air Force Base in California, where it landed Aug. 9 after 13 days in space on mission STS-114. In the mate_demate device, a horizontal structure mounted at the 80-foot level between two towers controls and guides a large lift beam that attaches to the orbiter to raise and lower it. The orbiter will be lowered to the ground and then be towed to the Orbiter Processing Facility. Once inside the OPF, the payload bay doors will be opened and the MPLM Raffaello brought back from the International Space Station will be unloaded and transferred to the Space Station Processing Facility. This concludes mission STS-114.