Sts - 133 launch coverage - Introduction to commentary

  Mike Curie/STS-133 Launch Commentator: This is Shuttle Launch Control at T-3 hours and holding, with about one hour, 22 minutes and 50 seconds remaining in our hold today. Space shuttle Discovery -- the venerable veteran of America's human spaceflight fleet -- proudly resting atop Launch Pad 39A here at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, her wings outstretched and ready to soar to space for the 39th and final time. Discovery's odometer reads 142,917,535 miles. And Discovery is going to add about another 4 1/2 million miles to that total on this 11-day mission when it roars off the launch pad at 4:50 p.m. EST today and races to 17,500 miles an hour in about 8 1/2 minutes. Right after the launch tower is cleared today, Discovery will perform a roll maneuver, which points it precisely on the proper 51.6 degree trajectory to catch up to the International Space Station, our target in orbit. At the time of liftoff, the space station will be about 220 miles above the South Pacific. And as the shuttle rockets to the northeast it will climb to 17,500 miles an hour to begin the chase. STS-133 is an 11-day mission to the station. It will deliver the Permanent Multipurpose Module, or the PMM, which was converted from the Leonardo multi-purpose logistics module, to withstand the harsh elements of space. The PMM will provide additional storage for the station and experiments that may also be conducted inside of it, such as fluid physics, material science, biology and biotechnology. Discovery also will carry critical space components to the station and Express Logistics Carrier 4, or ELC 4, which is an external platform that holds large equipment to be transported using the unique capability of the shuttle. Also, Robonaut 2, or R2, will become the first human-like robot in space when it flies inside the PMM to become a permanent resident of the station. The STS-133 mission will feature two spacewalks, conducted by (Steve) Bowen and (Alvin) Drew to do maintenance work and install new components on the station. Here inside the Launch Control Center, the countdown for Discovery's launch is continuing on schedule. The window opens at 4:45 p.m. today and our preferred and planned launch time is five minutes later at 4:50:27 p.m. Eastern time. We're at T-3 hours and holding. This is Shuttle Launch Control.