STS-131: Discovery Rolls to Pad

STS-131: Discovery Rolls to Pad

George Diller: Space shuttle Discovery met its next major milestone for the upcoming STS-131 mission.

Just before midnight March 2, the doors of the gigantic Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida opened to reveal space shuttle Discovery secured on its mobile launcher platform.

The massive crawler-transporter, positioned under the platform, moved the shuttle stack out of the VAB headed for Launch Pad 39A.

It took the powerful transporter about six hours to carefully roll Discovery, its external fuel tank and twin solid rocket boosters to the pad at a steady pace of about one mile an hour.

 

The 3.4-mile trek to the seaside launch complex was completed when Discovery was secured or "hard down" on the pad at about 7 the next morning.

 

Now poised for liftoff in April, Discovery's seven-member crew is preparing to deliver a multi-purpose logistics module filled with science racks to the International Space Station.

From NASA's Kennedy Space Center, I'm George Diller

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