Space shuttle Discovery’s three main engines have been installed as work continues inside Orbiter Processing Facility-3 at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to ready the spacecraft for the STS-133 mission. Technicians will begin premate tests today for the payload the shuttle will carry to the International Space Station.
In the Vehicle Assembly Building, workers attached the 15-story external fuel tank to the twin solid rocket booster Discovery will use during its climb into orbit. The tank holds about 500,000 gallons of super-cold propellants to power the shuttle’s three main engines. The boosters provide the bulk of the power at liftoff, providing some 6 million pounds of thrust to push the shuttle stack off the launch pad.
The astronauts for Discovery are training today at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston to make heat shield repairs during spacewalks. The crew also is working with robotics skills for the mission, which is targeted to launch on September.