SPACEPHOTOS

(09/21/1998) --- At the end of its 6-hour, 4.2-mile circular trek from the Vehicle Assembly Building, the STS-95 Space Shuttle Discovery, still on the Mobile Launch Platform and crawler transporter, sits at Launch Pad 39B. To its left is the Fixed Service Structure that provides access to the orbiter and the Rotating Service Structure. Above it is the 80-foot fiberglass lightning mast that provides protection from lightning strikes. The top of the photo looks west, across the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. While at the launch pad, the orbiter, external tank and solid rocket boosters will undergo final preparations for the launch, scheduled to lift off Oct. 29. The mission includes research payloads such as the Spartan solar-observing deployable spacecraft, the Hubble Space Telescope Orbital Systems Test Platform, the International Extreme Ultraviolet Hitchhiker, as well as the SPACEHAB single module with experiments on space flight and the aging process