BRUCE BUCKINGHAM: Good morning. From the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, this is Space Shuttle Discovery's Launch Control.
Our countdown for launch of Space Shuttle Discovery on mission STS-121 is continuing as scheduled this morning.
Launch remains on time to occur at about 3:49 p.m. Eastern time and our launch opportunity window extends for about five minutes.
The primary objective of shuttle mission STS-121 is to rendezvous and dock with the orbiting
International Space Station for the purposes of delivering supplies to the station
and allow astronaut Thomas Reiter to remain on the station as part of the first three-person crew in over three years.
This mission will feature an orbiter TPS repair techniques experiment,
which is carried on the lightweight multi-purpose experiment support structure carrier.
In addition, the training umbilical system reel assembly will be delivered to the station in exchange for the existing assembly.
Two spacewalks are planned during this mission.
Landing of Discovery is scheduled for the late morning of July the 13th, back at Kennedy Space Center.
We've been working a issue this morning that has got the mission managers up a little bit earlier.
They are aggressively working an issue having to do with a heater on a thruster on the left-hand OMS pod.
The heater failed when it was switched on just prior to tanking activities, which basically indicates that the thruster is going to be non-functional.
Our mission managers right now are aggressively working the issue with high hopes
that it can be managed on orbit and that we can fly in the current configuration.
The discussions will continue through the morning, and the crew remains scheduled to leave for the pad at 12 noon.
Our weather for today continues to show a possibility of having anvil clouds and some thunderstorms in the area,
but at this point we are observed "go," and there are noindications that indicate, that,
there are no indicators right now that indicate the clouds or the anvils could be,
could be forming other than what we had normally anticipated this time of year.
So we'll be watching the weather very closely as we continue with our activities here from Firing Room 4.
We're at T-3 hours and holding. This is Shuttle Launch Control.