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You're watching NASA Direct.

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Next on the NASA Space Shuttle Status Report:

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NASA stacked, wrapped and gapped hardware this week for all three space shuttles!

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You are about to see what's happening in space shuttle processing at Kennedy Space Center in Florida!

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The NASA Space Shuttle Status Report starts right now.

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Music.

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I'm Bob Holl, NASA test director, and this is the NASA Space Shuttle Status Report.

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First up in this week's shuttle news:

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Orbiter Discovery, its solid rocket boosters and its engines prepare for mission STS-121 to the International Space Station.

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It's all happening right now at Kennedy Space Center.

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Inside the Vehicle Assembly Building, solid rocket booster stacking continues.

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The right forward center portion of the stack is now in place.

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The twin white solid rocket boosters are filled with propellant and provide the thrust Discovery needs to soar into space.

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In other Discovery news, an Oxygen Generating System was delivered to KSC from Marshall Space Flight Center for mission STS-121.

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The system will produce breathing air for the space station crew.

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And inside the Space Station Processing Facility, also at Kennedy:

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Discovery's payload, named Leonardo, is now equipped with the necessary racks to hold the food,

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clothing and spare parts that Discovery will carry into space.

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Back inside the Orbiter Processing Facility, work is nearing completion on the gap fillers in the "priority one" area on Discovery's underside.

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When this is complete, the gap filler team will move to bay one to work on orbiter Atlantis.

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Speaking of Atlantis, more than 400 gap fillers are now replaced beneath the orbiter in Orbiter Processing Facility bay one.

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New gap filler application techniques were developed to ensure that they stay in place during the orbiter's re-entry into Earth's atmosphere.

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Thermal protection system blanket installation in the nose cap is under way on orbiter Endeavour in Orbiter Processing Facility bay 2.

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The blankets are made of layered pure silica and are hand sewn with silica thread.

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These blankets protect the orbiter against temperatures up to about two-thousand degrees.

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That's all the time we have for this week's Space Shuttle Status Report --

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your inside look at NASA's three space shuttles as they prepare for flight!

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Until our next report, stay with NASA TV and nasa.gov for the latest in mission news.

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For the NASA Space Shuttle Status Report, I'm Bob Holl.

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