Discovery readied for a return to Florida

The shuttle was forced to land at the Air Force base when weather conditions became unfavorable for a scheduled landing at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida following the shuttle's STS-128 mission to the International Space

NASA said Discovery has been mounted on a modified Boeing 747 shuttle aircraft and is expected to begin its journey back to Kennedy as early as Friday. The exact date and time of departure have yet to be set because of changing weather conditions, NASA said.

The space agency said live status updates will be added periodically to the NASA
Twitter feed during the flight at http://www.twitter.com/nasa.

NASA TV is to provide live coverage of Discovery's departure from California and its arrival at Cape Canaveral.

NASA TV downlink, the schedule of the ferry flight coverage and streaming video information is available at http://www.nasa.gov/ntv.

Copyright 2009 by United Press International.