Discovery Lights Up Pre-Dawn Sky on Flight to International Space Station

The space shuttle Discovery lit up the predawn sky as it roared off the launch pad from Cape Canaveral this morning at 6:21 a.m. On board are Commander Alan Poindexter, Pilot Jim Dutton and Mission Specialists Rick Mastracchio, Clay Anderson, Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger, Stephanie Wilson and Naoko Yamazaki of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. They are on a 13-day mission to supply the International Space Station.

NASA reports that the mission is going well but that a high-rate Ku-Band antenna is not operating properly. Engineers are trouble-shooting the system and devising work-around procedures should the effort fail. NASA says that the mission can be completely safely even if the problem is not resolved.