Intertank Door Closed; Astronauts Prep for Quarantine

Technicians preparing space shuttle Discovery for next week's launch closed the intertank door on the shuttle's external fuel tank overnight at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Teams are performing final inspections on the spacecraft's aft today and will fill up several orange bags with water at the flame trench at Launch Pad 39A. The sausage-shaped bags called water troughs are suspended beneath the nozzles of the solid rocket boosters. At ignition, they break open and the water helps dampen the sound waves generated by the boosters.

At NASA's Johnson Space Center, STS-133 crew members are enjoying a day off today before entering quarantine this evening in crew quarters in advance of next Thursday’s targeted launch.

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