End of Nasa ‘Test Mission’?

Discovery has been successfully de-mated from Nasa’s specially modified Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft and has now been towed into the Orbiter Processing Facility bay 3 where the Multi-Purpose Logistics Module Raffaello, still inside, will be removed from the payload bay and transferred to the Space Station Processing Facility.

What is interesting is that Nasa are now calling this latest mission a ‘Test Mission’. Previously it was called their ‘Return To Flight’ mission. Is this a damage limitation exercise?

Matt

(Image credit: NASA/KSC)

[Technorati tag(s): shuttle, nasa, Space Shuttle, Space Shuttle Discovery, Discovery, Space, Science]