CAPE CANAVERAL Shuttle Discovery and seven astronauts blasted out of the Kennedy Space Center today on a mission to deliver the last of the major science laboratories to the International Space Station.
Japan’s Kibo science complex, the largest piece of the station to be launched on a U.S. space shuttle, will join U.S., Russian and European laboratories on the orbiting outpost. Kibo will be attached to the space station on Tuesday and open for business on Wednesday if all goes as planned. The long-awaited launch of Kibo was held up, along with the overall construction of the space station, by the 2003 Columbia accident.
