Last Mission of the Space Shuttle Discovery

(Click on image to enlarge)

Here is a photo of the Space Shuttle Discovery (designation OV-103), photographed from my 5th floor balcony on February 24, 2011 at a distance of 47 miles from Kennedy Space Center.  If you click on the image to enlarge, you can see a profile of the booster rocket and the space shuttle at the top of the plume trail.

First flown in 1984, Discovery is the oldest orbiter in the fleet and the first to be retired, marking the end of an era. It takes its name from 3 British sailing ships renowned in history: Henry Hudson’s Discovery (1610-1611) which searched for the Northwest Passage, the HMS Discovery (1875-1876) which brought Captain George Nares to the North Pole, and the RRS Discovery (1901-1904) commissioned as a Royal Geographic Society research vessel. This Discovery is the orbiter used to launch the Hubble Space Telescope.  Here are some vital statistics:

Made 38 trips to space

Carried 246 crew members (lifetime)

Spent 352 days in orbit

Circled the Earth 5,628 times

Traveled 143 million miles

There will be one more flight each of the Endeavor (mission #STS-134) and the Atlantis (mission #STS-135) before the Space Shuttle program closes for the last time.