The first expedition aboard international space station got a little longer on Wednesday when NASA announced a delay from February to March in launching space shuttle Discovery to ferry the three-man crew back to Earth.
National flags representing all the international partners run along the bottom.
Ten steering thrusters on the shuttle are being replaced after some were found chipped, while others will be swapped to prevent leaks. It's our policy that when we change a jet out, we change all the jets on that particular manifold. If we don't do that, we have some risk of having leaking jets on the following flight. So that means even though four jets need to be replaced, we have to change out 10. Discovery atop the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft departs California's Edwards Air Force Base on its cross-country trek on November 2 bound for Kennedy Space Center in Florida.