| 12 weeks 3 days 15 hours ago Japanese lab headed to space station on Discovery
|
(NECN/ABC) - Discovery surged toward space, filled to the brim with a new addition and
new parts for a broken toilet.
The largest piece of cargo, a giant Japanese laboratory, 37 feet long and
weighing more than 32,000 pounds.
Once attached, it will be the biggest room on the space station. it will
take three spacewalks just to hook it up.
From the shuttle cockpit, the commander Mark Kelly radioed they were ready
for the job.
The lab takes up so much room in the shuttle, NASA had to leave off part of
a robotic arm used to scan the spacecraft's heat shield to look for damage
before they return to earth.
The crew has had to delay that inspection until they reach the space station
where the sensor system was left behind by the last shuttle mission.
"a lot of people have prepared for a long time for this mission. It's hard
to believe how much work has gone into it."
While adding the laboratory is their primary objective, the shuttle crew is
carrying with them a pump, hoses and gaskets to fix the space station's one
and only high-tech toilet.
For several days, the space station crew has had to manually flush their
toilet a process that requires two astronauts and valuable time.
Once the shuttle arrives the astronauts will not only get the parts they need,
they will be able to use discovery's restroom until the out of this world
plumbing job
is complete.
After this launch there are only ten more. The next a repair mission to the
hubble telescope in october. The very last shuttle mission not be bound for the
International space station.
ABC's Kevin Oliver has more.
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