Mission/Orbiter:STS-133 / Discovery

Crew: Commander Steven Lindsey, Pilot Eric Boe and Mission Specialists Alvin Drew, Michael Barratt, Steve Bowen and Nicole Stott. Bowen replaced astronaut Tim Kopra, who was injured in a bicycle accident in January. Crew bios here.

Note: This is the last flight of Discovery.

Primary Payload: 35th station flight (ULF5), EXPRESS Logistics Carrier 4 (ELC4), Permanent Multi-Purpose Module (PMM)

Current Status: Go

Launch Date: Thursday February 24, 2011 at 16:50 EST (4:50 pm) – 10 minute window

Mission Duration: 11 Days

Odds of Launch: 80 percent.

Possible Issues?: No impact to the countdown or launch is expected from a leak that developed in a regulator in the reaction control system due to numerous redundancies and the leak is very small.

Launch Pad 39A — Webcam Image courtesy: NASA/Kennedy Space Center

NOAA’s Forecast:

Thursday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 76. East wind between 5 and 15 mph.

To keep current with the news about the launch, I recommend you go to NASA’s Launch Blog which should be live by noon or before, just be sure to refresh your browser to get the latest from that site.

You can catch the launch at NASA-TV

Image Credits: NASA / NOAA