That is a relief, I thought I've been missing out for years. I guess I should have mentioned I'm up in PA. The Shuttle launches rarely come up along the east coast and the few times they have, we seem to be overcast up here.
I'm out in a nice area away from cities, so I get a good view of orbiting sats and especially the Shuttle and Space Station when they are docked. I even got a great view of one of the first Chinese unmanned flights orbiting over head.
spaceflightnow.com
1755 GMT (12:55 p.m. EST)
FUELING BEGINS. After a couple-hour delay, loading of space shuttle Discovery's external fuel tank with a half-million gallons of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen is finally underway now. Work fell behind schedule overnight at pad 39B, which in turn forced the launch team to postpone the start of fueling. But the three-hour process to the load the external tank began with the chilldown thermal conditioning at about 12:46 p.m.
NASA believes there is sufficient margin left in the remaining countdown timeline to give Discovery a shot at launching tonight at 8:47 p.m. EST as scheduled.
Weather remains the wildcard, however. There is a 70 percent chance that low clouds and stiff crosswinds will violate the shuttle's weather rules.