WIKIARCHIVES.SPACE

At the end of its 6-hour, 4.2-mile circular trek from the Vehicle Assembly Building, the STS-95 Space Shuttle Discovery sits on the Mobile Launch Platform, still atop the crawler transporter, at Launch Pad 39B. To its left is the Fixed Service Structure that provides access to the orbiter and the Rotating Service Structure. Above it is the 80-foot fiberglass lightning mast which provides protection from lightning strikes. This view shows the Atlantic Ocean beyond the shuttle, to the east. At the launch pad, the orbiter, external tank and solid rocket boosters will undergo final preparations for the launch, scheduled to lift off Oct. 29. The mission includes research payloads such as the Spartan solar-observing deployable spacecraft, the Hubble Space Telescope Orbital Systems Test Platform, the International Extreme Ultraviolet Hitchhiker, as well as the SPACEHAB single module with experiments on space flight and the aging process.