STS-120

If all goess well, and if the weather cooperates-- always a factor in Florida-- shuttle mission STS-120 will lift off tomorrow morning. It will be an ambitious mission, aimed at no less than the physical transformation of the International Space Station.

Shuttle Discovery will deliver the Harmony module to ISS. Harmony will strengthen the capability to do science on ISS, paving the way for installation on future missions of European and Japanese science lab modules. Adding Harmony to ISS, however, also requires shifting a solar panel array to its final position. All the adding and moving of big stuff makes STS-120 a complex, challenging mission. The spacewalks and use of the shuttle's robot arm needed to reconfigure ISS will be among the most demanding ever attempted.