Space Shuttle Discovery Makes a Date

With concerns over Soyuz safety allayed, voyage to ISS is a go

By Matt Cantor

Posted May 20, 2008 11:51 AM CDT

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Space Shuttle Discovery Makes a Date — Ground crew walk around the Soyuz landing capsule after it landed in northern Kazakhstan, April 19, 2008, several hundred kilometers off-target, Russian space officials said. (AP Photo/Shamil Zhumatov, Pool)

The investigation into last month's scary landing by a Russian Soyuz spacecraft is still going on, but another Soyuz at the International Space Station is off the hook, so NASA has cleared the Discovery shuttle for launch on May 31, the Orlando Sentinel reports. The shuttle is expected to attach a huge Japanese lab to the ISS.

"If we had to use (Soyuz), we think there is a good chance it will return the crew and do what it needs to do as a parachute or backup system," a NASA official told the Houston Chronicle. (More NASA stories.)

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