Live in orbit: Tally ho! Shuttle spots station

Discovery's astronauts are within eagle-eyesight of the International Space Station.

Two days after they launched from Kennedy Space Center, the astronauts now are flying 44 miles below and behind the orbiting outpost. Pilot George Zamka spotted the station glimmering in the distance.

"Houston, Discovery. I just wanted to report that we have a good tally ho on the station," the rookie space flyer said.

The phrase comes from fox hunting. It is used to urge on the hounds when a rider see the fox.

Discovery was flying over central Asia at the time.

The shuttle is scheduled to dock at the station around 8:33 a.m. EDT. Veteran astronaut Pam Melroy will guide Discovery through a 360-degree backflip about 7:32 a.m. as the shuttle comes within 600 feet of the station. Assuming Discovery is in Ku-band contact with the Mission Control Center in Houston, the maneuver should be a visual spectacular.

You can watch it all unfold here in The Flame Trench. Simply click the link below the image above to launch our NASA TV viewer.

Check out the timeline for major mission events here in latest version -- Rev B -- of the NASA TV schedule: tvsked_revb.pdf.

The crew's detailed schedule and messages beamed up from Mission Control are here in the Flight Day 3 Execute package: FD03exec.pdf.

And the official NASA STS-120 Press Kit is here: STS-120_Shuttle_Press_Kit.pdf