Live at KSC: Discovery is "go" for next Tuesday

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Shuttle Discovery and its crew have been given a green light for launch next Tuesday despite a safety group's concerns about slight defects in orbiter wing panels.

Liftoff is scheduled for 11:38 a.m. -- midway into a 10-minutes window that opens at 11:33 a.m.

NASA officials will outline the details of an all-day engineering debate during a news conference at 8:45 p.m. You can watch the briefing live here in The Flame Trench. Simply click the link below the image above to launch our NASA TV viewer.

The bottom line: Senior NASA leaders decided that the slight defects in silicon carbide coating on the panels would not jeopardise the safety of the orbiter or the crew during atmospheric reentry.

Independent experts with the NASA Engineering and Safety Center had recommended NASA swap out the panels before flying. They were concerned that the defects could trigger a catastrophic burn-through of the orbiter's wings during reentry -- a period during which the shuttle is exposed to temperatures ranging up to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit.