The space shuttle Discovery moved out to its launch pad on Thursday morning in preparation for its December launch to the International Space Station (ISS).
The 6.8-kilometre (4.2-mile) rollout to Pad 39B at Florida鈥檚 Kennedy Space Center began at 0029 EST (529 GMT) and the shuttle was officially at the pad at 0903 EST (1403 GMT).
Launch is tentatively scheduled for 7 December, but liftoff could be moved ahead one day if managers deem there is time in the schedule (see Y2K-like fears create shuttle scheduling crunch).
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The shuttle will deliver a segment of the station鈥檚 truss, which acts as a backbone to support the station鈥檚 expansive solar arrays, radiators and other equipment.
The astronauts jokingly call the new $11 million P5 segment 鈥淧uny鈥� because it is smaller than most of the other segments of the truss, weighing just 1900 kilograms. The station鈥檚 P3/P4 segment, which was installed on the most recent shuttle mission in September, weighs about 16,000 kilograms in comparison.
P5 will eventually act as a spacer between the new P4 element, which has solar arrays stretching from it, and the older P6 element. P6 and its solar arrays currently sit atop the station, but sometime in 2007, astronauts will move P6 to the end of P5.
