Space Shuttle Discovery's bags are just about packed.
Boeing technicians at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida have the cargo for mission
STS-121 in place at Launch Pad 39B, ready to load into the shuttle's payload bay.
Like most activities involving space hardware, it was a delicate process.
Inside Kennedy's Space Station Processing Facility, a powerful overhead crane carefully lifted each payload element out of its workstand,
hauled it across the facility's high bay, and gently lowered it into a waiting canister.
The first element to be loaded up was a carrier holding equipment the astronauts
will use to test shuttle tile repair techniques while in orbit.
Next came the Integrated Cargo Carrier, with a new part for the International Space Station's mobile transporter and a spare pump.
Last was the Italian-built logistics module Leonardo, filled with station supplies,
experiments and a new life-support component called the Oxygen Generation System.
The loaded canister was rotated into a vertical position and driven out to the launch pad,
where it was lifted into the Payload Changeout Room.
Inside this clean-room environment, the cargo can be safely removed from the canister and placed into Discovery's payload bay for flight.
The STS-121 mission is scheduled to lift off during a launch window stretching from July 1 to July 19.