The U.S. Discovery space shuttle blasted off on Monday from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on one of NASA's final stockpiling missions to the International Space Station.
The shuttle, carrying seven astronauts and science equipment for the ISS laboratories, set off on schedule at 06:21 local time (14:21 GMT).
The launch was initially scheduled for March 18, but was suspended because of bad weather. The shuttle is scheduled to arrive at the space station on Wednesday, and return to Earth on April 18.
The mission will last 13 days, during which astronauts are expected to carry out three 6.5-hour spacewalks.
The launch comes three days after Russian spacecraft Soyuz TMA-18, carrying Russian cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov and Mikhail Kornienko and American astranaut Tracy Caldwell-Dyson, blasted off to the ISS from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan.
Discovery is carrying to the ISS an Italian-built Leonardo container with a small fitness studio for the space station crew, an observation module with cameras and sensors, and other scientific equipment for experiments.
This is the 33rd Discovery's mission to the ISS, and the 131st mission of the Space Shuttle program. NASA intends to scrap its Discovery launches by late September because the shuttles are outdated and too expensive to maintain. Only three launches remain after this one then NASA will use Russian spacecrafts to convey its astronauts to the space station.
WASHINGTON, April 5 (RIA Novosti)
