Space shuttle on way to space station

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SAN ANTONIO (AFPN) --  Space Shuttle Discovery successfully launched from Cape Canaveral at 8:47 p.m. EDT Dec. 9 and is on its way to the International Space Station.

Mission STS-116 carries a crew of seven, three of them Sailors, and is Discovery's 33rd mission. The shuttle and its crew will deliver another truss segment to add to the growing space station and the astronauts will rewire the orbiting laboratory.

The crew includes Mark Polansky, commander; Navy Cmdr Bill Oefelein, pilot; Nicholas Patrick, mission specialist 1; Navy Capt. Bob Curbeam, mission specialist 2; Christer Fuglesand, mission specialist 3; Joan Higginbotham, mission specialist 4; and Navy Cmdr. Suni Williams, mission specialist 5.

This could be Discovery's toughest mission, said Col. Terry Birts, an Air Force astronaut working as a capsule communicator at the Houston Space Center's mission control.

"It's probably the most complicated we've had in the space shuttle and space station program," the colonel said.

The crew's main objective is to rewire the space station's electrical system. To do that, the crew will have to power down the orbiting station.

"What we're going to have to do is power down half of the space station, rewire that power channel and, on the next space walk, we'll power down the other half of the space station and rewire that power channel," Colonel Birts said.

But the rewiring will be a welcome change, he said.

"The last five years, the station has been working on a temporary power system," he said. "This rewiring will give it a permanent power supply."

Apart from several space walks, Commander Williams will replace astronaut Thomas Reiter, who will return home with Discovery.

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