STORY HIGHLIGHTS The space shuttle docks 220 miles above Earth with the ISS for the 13th and final time There was a slight delay in "hard-mating" due to alignment issues, NASA says Discovery was the first space shuttle to dock with the space station in 1999 (CNN) -- Some 220 miles above the Earth's surface, the shuttle Discovery docked Saturday afternoon with the International Space Station for the last time. Due to problems lining up with each other, the shuttle's "hard-mating" with the permanent orbiter threatened to push the six-man crew off schedule. The hook-up was finished around 3 p.m., yet NASA's Mission Control noted a possibility that the installation of an express logistics carrier would not be completed until Sunday, one day later than planned. Still, there were no major problems on the third day of the shuttle's 11-day mission, during which the crew is set to deliver a storage module, a science rig and spare parts to the space station and its six occupants. Discovery started its 39th and final flight with a launch late Thursday afternoon from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Originally scheduled for November, the shuttle's launch had been delayed to make repairs to the external tank's support beams. And NASA halted its countdown on Thursday, at five minutes, because of a computer problem related to safety on the "eastern range." But after a confirmation that all was good to go, the countdown resumed, and the shuttle lifted off about three minutes behind its planned 4:50 p.m. ET launch. Foam falls off Discovery Bill Nye and the final Discovery launch The crew is headed by Steve Lindsey. Steve Bowen, a late addition, became the first ever astronaut to fly consecutive missions after he was assigned to take the place of Tim Kopra when Kopra was injured last month in a bicycle accident, according to NASA. Prior to Thursday's launch, Discovery had spent 352 days in orbit, circling the Earth 5,628 times. It has also carried 246 crew members, more than any space vehicle in history. "In a way, it's ... sad to see the last flight," astronaut Steven Swanson said Thursday. "It's such a wonderful vehicle." The last scheduled launch of Space Shuttle Endeavour is set for April 19 and will be commanded by Mark Kelly, the husband of U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, who is recovering from being shot last month in Tucson, Arizona. Atlantis is tentatively scheduled to launch during the summer. Discovery was the first space shuttle to dock with a space station of any kind when it met up on June 4, 1998, with Russia's now defunct Mir space station. The craft also was the first to hook up with the International Space Station, doing so on May 29, 1999, according to NASA. Saturday's event marked the 13th such docking for the Discovery.
The shuttle is basically an expensive pickup truck that goes into space, but the idea behind it is great. We have many problems down here on Earth, but we need to be looking at space as well. It's sad that the shuttle missions are retiring. Commercial may be the way to go though, at least until we start seeing ads like, "The moon, brought to you by Apria Healthcare"...
Photo of Discovery taken from the station over the coastline of Peru. The shadow on Discovery is from the station itself. Bigger at flickr
I wish we had better technology for space travel. It would be nice to send some people to another planet.
Video taken by six cameras mounted on Discovery's recovered solid rocket boosters offer unique views of the shuttle's Feb. 24 launch on STS-133. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvSRnOJ8x38&feature=player_embedded"]YouTube - New Views of Discovery's Launch from Shuttle's Solid Rocket Boosters Sound @ 14:50!! Check your speakers! This is long, but cool anyway. I've always wondered what happened to those boosters after they drop off of the shuttle.