NASA's Discovery Shuttle Retires After 39 Successful Missions

On Wednesday March 9th, shortly before midday, Discovery, NASA's most traveled Space Shuttle gracefully landed at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, after successfully completing it's 39th and final mission - A 13-day trip to the International Space Station to deliver a new storage compartment with supplies and, a legless humanoid robot.

Since its first mission in 1984, when it transported the Hubble Space Telescope, Discovery has had a long and distinguished career. The hardest working of all shuttles, it has completed a record 39 missions, flown 148 million miles, made 5,830 orbits around the Earth and spent a total of 365 days in Space. It has also carried the most astronauts - 246 in all, and, captured some of the most breathtaking images.

Now, this workhorse will begin preparing for its next role - The star attraction at the Smithsonian Museum. To prepare the shuttle for it's retirement, NASA engineers will remove its three main engines, as well as, the plumbing, which contains hazardous fuels - a process that is expected to take a few months. They may also take a few other parts of the shuttle for future Space research.

Once ready, the Discovery will make one more flight to its resting place in Washington DC. However this time it will fly the 750-mile trek strapped to the top of a Boeing Jumbo Jet.

Discovery's retirement is the first step towards winding down the 30-year Space Shuttle program, that began with the launch of Shuttle Columbia in 1981. On April 19th, Space Shuttle Endeavour will make its final trip to Space, followed by Space Shuttle Atlantis, which is scheduled to launch on June 28th.

After those missions, Endeavour and Atlantis will also spend the rest of their lives in museums. However, since 29 museums have expressed the desire to house these Space icons, NASA officials will have to pick the two lucky institutions - Something they plan on announcing on April 12th - the day Shuttle Columbia launched to Space, 30 years ago.

Once the Shuttle program is wrapped up, NASA scientists will focus their entire attention on the new Constellation Program, geared toward taking astronauts beyond the low-Earth orbit to more exciting destinations like the moon and Mars. We for one, cannot wait for that day to arrive.

Resources: NASA.gov, news.yahoo.com, physog.com