Windy weather delays Discovery lift

Discovery remains on track to leave Kennedy Space Center for good Tuesday morning despite winds delaying the orbiter’s attachment to a carrier aircraft on Saturday. Crews plan to lift Discovery onto the 747 jumbo jet today. "There’s no impact to the scheduled departure on Tuesday," said KSC spokeswoman Tracy Young. The ferry flight is expected to take off around 7 a.m. Tuesday on a nonstop trip to Dulles International Airport, near the Smithsonian Institution annex where Discovery will be publicly displayed. It’s the first of four retired shuttles to be shipped to a museum since the final missions last year. Early Saturday, Discovery was towed about two miles from the Vehicle Assembly Building to the shuttle runway. There it was hooked up to a sling in a special gantry used to place orbiters on or remove them from their carrier aircraft. "We’re very happy because everything has gone well to get to this point," Stephanie Stilson, the KSC manager overseeing the delivery of each orbiter, said Saturday morning. "When I start to think about this (being) the last time we’ll do this with Discovery, it is sad." But just as happened so often during normal shuttle operations, weather changed the plans. Gusting winds exceeded allowable limits for lifting an orbiter, forcing managers to postpone the move. Assuming conditions have improved today, Discovery will be hoisted 60 feet up to allow the 747 to roll underneath. Then the orbiter will be lowered down and bolted to the plane. The work was expected to start at 5 a.m. and be completed by mid-morning. Early forecasts suggest the ferry flight will be able to proceed on schedule, but a final decision will follow a weather briefing early Tuesday. Before heading north, the piggybacked plane and spaceship plan to fly low over KSC and local beaches north of Patrick Air Force Base. Stilson expects an emotional sendoff from shuttle workers and fans. "I hope that they savor the fact that it is the end of Discovery’s time in space and the end of Kennedy Space Center’s attachment to Discovery," she said. "I think you’ll see a lot of tears."