Live: Bat Poses No Danger to Discovery

Safety teams at Kennedy Space Center say a small black bat perched on space shuttle Discovery's orange external tank poses no risk to tonight's launch.

(Check out the image of the bat to the left, which was provided by Robert Pearlman of collectspace.com)

On a colder day, the bat could have frozen and become a piece of debris that could endanger the shuttle during liftoff.

But the temperature in the area, after the tank's fueling with super-cold liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, is now comfortably between 58 and 70 degrees.

Spotted an one of dozens of cameras monitoring different parts of the shuttle on Launch Complex 39A, the bat is hanging about a quarter to a third of the way up the north side of the tank, on the opposite side from the orbiter.

"Of course, we don't usually have bats on the tank," said Armando Oliu, a manager involved with the NASA teams that handles inspection of the shuttle on the pad and imagery of launch. "It certainly would be a concern to the bat."

It's not the first the shuttle has nearly become a bat mobile.

A bat clung to the tank of the shuttle right up to liftoff of the STS-72 mission in 1996 - the first flight by Discovery crew member and Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata - before flying away.

A bird struck Discovery's external tank during NASA's Return to Flight in July 2005.

That prompted the installation of radar at the shuttle launch pads to help spot bird in the vicinity.

NASA also installed loudspeakers to blare noise intended to keep birds, particularly turkey vultures and black vultures, from settling near the launch vehicle.

KSC also established a program asking employees to report road kill around the spaceport, hoping to reduce the birds' food supply. A card with a phone number for reporting carrion reads, "Road kill, its NOT for the Birds!"

More than 300 species of birds visit he Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, which surrounds KSC.