Shuttle Discovery Chasing Space Station
CAPE CANAVERAL (CBS4) -- South Florida space watchers are keeping a close eye to the sky as the shuttle Discovery chases the International Space Station after lifting off for its final mission.
The six astronauts will spend Friday surveying their ship for signs of launch damage. Several pieces of foam insulation broke off Discovery's fuel tank. But NASA says it happened late enough in Thursday's launch to pose no safety concern. All the same, commander Steven Lindsey and his crew will use a 100-foot boom to inspect the vulnerable wings and nose.
Discovery -- NASA's most traveled spaceship -- will reach the orbiting lab Saturday. The shuttle is carrying a load of supplies and the first humanoid robot to fly in space.
Following its 11-day mission, Discovery will be retired and sent to a museum.
Discovery is the oldest of NASA's three surviving space shuttles and the first to be decommissioned this year. Two missions remain, first by Atlantis and then Endeavour, to end the 30-year program.
It was Discovery's 39th launch and the 133rd shuttle mission overall.
Packed aboard Discovery is Robonaut 2, or R2, set to become the first humanoid robot in space. The experimental machine -- looking human from the waist up -- will remain boxed until after Discovery departs. Its twin was at the launch site, perched atop a rover, waving goodbye.
"I'm in space! HELLO UNIVERSE!!!" R2 announced in a tweet sent by a NASA spokeswoman.
Discovery already has 143 million miles to its credit, beginning with its first flight in 1984. By the time this mission ends, the shuttle will have tacked on another 4.5 million miles. And it will have spent 363 days in space and circled Earth 5,800 times when it returns March 7.
No other spacecraft has been launched so many times.
Discovery's list of achievements include delivering the Hubble Space Telescope to orbit, carrying the first Russian cosmonaut to launch on a U.S. spaceship, performing the first rendezvous with the Russian space station Mir with the first female shuttle pilot in the cockpit, returning Mercury astronaut John Glenn to orbit, and bringing shuttle flights back to life after the Challenger and Columbia accidents.
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