The space shuttle Discovery completed its slow crawl out to the launch pad early Tuesday morning in preparation for its February 24 departure, NASA announced.
Shuttle Discovery reached the launch pad at 2:55am Eastern time Tuesday. The 3.4-mile trek took almost seven hours. The rotating service structure (RSS) - which provides protected access to the orbiter - was closed around Discovery slightly before 6am, NASA said.
"Technicians now are working on connecting the ground umbilical carrier plate or GUCP. Leak checks are scheduled for Friday. The shuttle was powered up this morning as part of the initial check out of systems," the agency said in a statement.
The astronauts who will be taking Discovery to the International Space Station are currenty at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. They are reviewing photo/TV operations today before Commander Steve Lindsey and Pilot Eric Boe conduct Shuttle Training Aircraft training runs around the White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico.
Last month, NASA said astronaut Steve Bowen will replace astronaut Tim Kopra on the Discovery mission after Kopra was injured in a biking accident. He will recover, but not in time for the launch.
Discovery was originally set to launch on November 1, but leaks, inclement weather, and cracks have delayed its departure about a half dozen times. In mid-January, however, NASA announced that it had discovered what was causing the cracks, and were confident that the vehicle would be ready for a Feb. 24 launch.