* Astronomy

The launch window for STS-121, NASA's second space shuttle flight since the Columbia disaster, opens at Kennedy Space Centre in Florida at 19:48 GMT (15:48 p.m. EDT) on 1 July and closes on 19 July. The launch window for the Discovery orbiter lasts for about five minutes on 1 July.

This mission is the 115th shuttle flight and the 18th U.S. flight to the International Space Station. Discovery's mission, designated STS-121, is scheduled to last about 12 days with a planned landing at Kennedy at about 14:45 GMT (10:45 a.m. EDT ) on 13 July.

The STS-121 crew includes Commander Steven Lindsey, Pilot Mark Kelly and mission specialists Michael Fossum, Lisa Nowak, Stephanie Wilson, UK-born astronaut Piers Sellers and Thomas Reiter, a German astronaut with the European Space Agency. Reiter will join the current ISS Expedition 13 crew as flight engineer 2 and will become the first long-duration crew member who is not American or Russian.

The STS-121 mission is the second mission in the shuttle Return to Flight sequence. Payloads aboard Discovery include a new control and life-support system that uses water to generate enough oxygen for up to six people. Science experiments include studies of space motion sickness, latent virus reactivation and shedding, renal stone formation and insomnia. In the payload bay, the multi-purpose logistics module, Leonardo, will carry more than two tons of hardware, equipment and supplies up to the station and return unwanted items back to Earth.

During two planned spacewalks on the fifth and seventh days of the mission, Sellers and Fossum will test a 15 m robotic arm boom extension as a work platform and also test techniques for inspecting and repairing the reinforced carbon-carbon segments that protect the shuttle's nose cone and wing leading edges. The spacewalkers will install spare parts for future use and replace the trailing umbilical system reel assembly for the station's mobile transporter, a rail car that travels along the station's truss.

NASA managers meeting at KSC today for the Flight Readiness Review have picked July 1 to launch the first space shuttle in almost a year for a test-flight mission that will try out inspection methods and repairs that were devised following the Columbia disaster.

Mission: STS-121 - 18th International Space Station Flight (ULF1.1) - Multi-Purpose Logistics Module
Vehicle: Discovery (OV-103)
Location: Launch Pad 39B
Launch Date: Launch Processing Window July 1-19, 2006
Launch Pad: 39B
Crew: Lindsey, Kelly, Sellers, Fossum, Nowak, Wilson and Reiter
Inclination/Orbit Altitude: 51.6 degrees/122 nautical miles

Status: The space shuttle main engine sensor checkouts were completed on Thursday. Flight crew systems workers de-stowed equipment from the crew cabin following completion of the Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test on Thursday, and are scheduled to install the extravehicular manoeuvring units (the suits worn by shuttle crew members for spacewalks) today.

The Space shuttle Discovery has been moved onto its launch pad at Cape Canaveral, in Florida, US, as part of preparations for a July lift off.

The slow procession from the Vehicle Assembly Building to the pad took almost eight hours.
The orbiter is scheduled to take off some time between 1 and 19 July.

The US space agency NASA announced on Thursday that the next launch of the space shuttle has been rescheduled from September to March next year.

"NASA is now targeting March 2006 for the next Space Shuttle mission, STS-121. This will be the second test flight to the International Space Station in the Shuttle Return to Flight series" - NASA statement.

The space shuttle Discovery will be used for the next mission instead of the shuttle Atlantis.
Changing orbiters for the next mission would put it in a better position for future missions to the International Space Station. Atlantis is now assigned for the following mission, STS-115, carrying Space Station truss segments which are too heavy to be carried by Discovery.

According to the statement, a pair of "Tiger Teams" are still investigating why foam was lost from the external tank when Discovery was launched on July 26. The space agency has said that there will be no further shuttle launch until the problem is fixed.
Meanwhile, NASA is making final preparations at the Dryden Flight Research Centre in California for Discovery's return to Kennedy Space Centre, Florida.

The orbiter will be attached to one of NASA's modified Boeing 747 aircraft for the cross-country ferry flight, currently scheduled to depart on Friday morning and arrive in Florida as early as Saturday afternoon.