Space shuttle workers began filling Discovery's fuel tank for a Saturday night launch attempt despite a bleak weather outlook that threatened another postponement, according to Reuters. Managers nearly had to call off the launch try because of delays with equipment preparations, but technicians were able to begin fueling the shuttle early Saturday afternoon with a bit of time to spare. Discovery is set to blast off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 8:47:34 p.m. EST on Saturday (0147:34 GMT on Sunday) in what would be NASA's first launch after sunset since before the 2003 Columbia disaster. Managers recently lifted the ban on night launches, imposed to ensure cameras had good lighting to spot any debris falling off the shuttle's fuel tank. The weather forecast looked grim, with a 70-percent chance of high winds, rain and clouds that would make liftoff unacceptable on Saturday. NASA hopes to get its third and final shuttle mission of the year airborne before Dec. 17 and avoid a potentially troublesome and time-consuming effort to update Discovery's computers during flight to accommodate the transition to the new year. The shuttle's computers, not designed to fly through a year-end rollover, would fall out of sync with ground-based systems. The goal of Discovery's 12-day flight, which would be the 117th in shuttle program history, is to rewire the International Space Station so partner laboratories built by Europe and Japan can be installed next year. The crew was strapped in and ready for an initial launch attempt on Thursday night but a thick ceiling of clouds failed to part before the Earth rotated out of position for Discovery to reach the space station. Friday's weather was too poor to even attempt a launch. NASA needs good visibility to track the shuttle at liftoff, and the winds have to be calm enough to permit a landing in case of an emergency. Commander Mark Polansky leads a crew that includes Sweden's first astronaut, Christer Fuglesang, along with pilot William Oefelein, flight engineer Robert Curbeam, and mission specialists Nicholas Patrick, Joan Higginbotham and Sunita Williams. Nearly four years ago, debris damaged Columbia during its launch and caused it to break apart as it re-entered Earth's atmosphere, killing its seven astronauts. The fuel tank has since been redesigned.
