Tag Archives: STS-133

At 4:53 p.m. eastern the space shuttle Discovery launched on what is her final mission. It was a launch whose countdown went smoothly until the final few minutes when a range safety command computer malfunctioned, almost postponing the launch a day.

Astronaut Steve Bowen, who is replacing Tim Kopra on the crew of STS-133, trained the week of January 24 with the remaining members of space shuttle Discovery’s mission to the International Space Station. The training took place at the virtual reality lab, space shuttle simulator and neutral buoyancy laboratory at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Kopra was replaced when a bicycle injury suffered January …