Friday, December 08, 2006

STS-116
When:- Dec 8 2006
Time:- 8:47 PM EST
Where:- Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, Florida
What:- Launch of Space Shuttle "Discovery"
The launch which was scheduled to be on Thursday has been postponed to Saturday due to bad weather the earlier day.
This is the 33rd launch for Discovery as reported by NASA. The crew includes William A. Oefelein, pilot; Joan E. Higginbotham, mission specialist, Mark L. Polansky, commander, astronauts Robert L. Curbeam, Nicholas J.M. Patrick, Sunita L. Williams and the European Space Agency's Christer Fuglesang, all mission specialists. Following on the footsteps of Kalpana Chawla is 41 year old Sunita, who's an American born Indian, married to Mr. Michael Williams.

A space mission is not an easy taskto do, the crew has been undergoing tremendous pressure and training including, final dress rehearsal for the past few days. They get a hands-on experience in how to react in case of emergency, prepare themselves for emergency landing, training for the additional gravitational force they'll experience on-board. Seems like a whole lot of fun right? Well, it involves much dedication and most importantly determination, the process of achieving one of the most respectable accomplishments; the completion of the International Space Station. NASA has reported this as the most complex and hardest missions.