Cape Canaveral (Florida): NASA began moving Discovery to the launch pad on Friday in preparation for only the second liftoff of a space shuttle since the Columbia disaster three years ago.
Discovery's trek of a little more than 4 miles (6.4 km) was expected to take about seven hours aboard a crawler-transporter. The shuttle weighs about 6 million pounds.
Its move to the launch pad is a major step toward a liftoff sometime between July 1 and July 19.
Air Force Col. Steven Lindsey will command the next mission, designated STS-121.
The shuttle is to dock with the international space station, delivering supplies and dropping off German astronaut Thomas Reiter.
Shuttle astronauts Piers Sellers and Mike Fossum are scheduled to conduct at least two spacewalks while the Discovery is docked with the space station.
The first will test the stability of the shuttle's new second robotic arm, called the Orbiter Boom Sensor System, as a work platform.
The second is to repair part of the station's mobile transporter, a train track on the exterior that permits its robotic arm to move around.
If time permits, Sellers and Fossum may conduct a third spacewalk to test techniques to repair damage to the shuttle's thermal protection system.
NASA intends to retire the shuttle fleet in 2010 after completing assembly of the international space station.
The next-generation manned spacecraft, called the Crew Exploration Vehicle, is in the design stage. NASA says it hopes to begin test flights in 2012.
After Discovery's mission last summer, the shuttle fleet was grounded because foam insulation was still snapping off the external fuel tank, as it did on Columbia. A chunk of foam knocked a hole in the wing of Columbia, causing the spacecraft to shatter as it returned to Earth, killing all seven astronauts.
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