HOUSTON - Less than one month remains before NASA's planned launch of the space shuttle Discovery and seven astronauts are gearing up for their orbital ride.

"We're just a few weeks from flight," said NASA astronaut Steven Lindsey, commander of Discovery's upcoming STS-121 mission, at a press briefing held Thursday, June 8. "Its been a long road for us, a couple of years of training for a lot of us… so its great to be back here getting ready to fly."

Lindsey and his astronaut crew are scheduled to launch toward the International Space Station (ISS) on July 1 on NASA's second shuttle mission since the 2003 Columbia accident. The planned 13-day mission is expected to complete NASA's two-mission Return to Flight process and allow construction to resume on the ISS.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The clock is ticking down towards a mock Thursday launch for NASA's STS-121 astronauts, who are preparing to ride the space shuttle Discovery into orbit on July 1.
The launch dress rehearsal, a two-day training session known as a Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test (TCDT) here at NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC), is one of the final milestones before the STS-121 crew launches aboard Discovery next month.
"I've been telling the crew that I'm guaranteeing July 1 but, as I get told at home, I'm quite often wrong," STS-121 commander Steven Lindsey said Tuesday in a press briefing at Discovery's launch pad. "I don't really know of anything out there that would preclude a July 1 launch."

Over the next few evenings ( and early mornings ) ISS will be visible for most of its passes over Europe. At the present time , the Canadarm2 is fully extended .....worth checking out if you have telescope equipment. Here's how it looked early Tuesday morning as the station passed over the UK [img]http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/satcom_transits/junearm1.gif[/img] Regards, John