The launch team is working no show-stopping technical issues and a Launch Readiness meeting on Sunday morning focused mostly on troubling weather forecast for this week.
"The team is rising to the challenge," KSC launch director Mike Leinbach said of crews at the spaceport balancing a wide range of challenges to keep an ambitious shuttle manifest on track.
That briefing is ongoing live at KSC and you can watch by clicking the link below the image above to launch our NASA TV viewer.
The story of the week could be weather. Today's updated forecast calls for a 40 percent chance of unacceptable conditions for a launch Tuesday or Wednesday. The forecast says there's a 30 percent chance of bad launch weather Thursday, a slight improvement over the forecast issued on Saturday.
The concerns are showers and clouds over and near the launch site.
If you want to read the complete forecast, click here.
Shuttle managers also said that, despite the fact that the safety reviews are completed for the flight, NASA has not stopped its effort to review the concerns about coating damage on the heat-shielding wing panels on the front edge of Discovery's wings. A safety team recommended replacing them pre-flight.
Instead, agency managers have decided that the coating cracks do not pose unwarranted danger to the spaceship or crew so they are going ahead with the mission.
"That is a continuous ongoing effort," launch integration manager Leroy Cain said. New information could always become available and it would be immediately reviewed. The problem affects panels on all three orbiters, not just Discovery.
A reporter reminded Cain that he was the entry flight director for the ill-fated Columbia mission and asked whether, knowing all that he knows and experiencing all that he has experienced, is he personally comfortable with the decision made.
"Yes, I am," Cain said.
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