FeaturesThe third Space Shuttle to foray into space was Discovery (designated OV-103), its maiden flight occurring on 30 August 1984. A contract for construction of Discovery was awarded to Rockwell International in January 1979 and it rolled out in October 1983. Interestingly, it was 3,120kg lighter than Columbia thanks to construction savings realized after building the three earlier Shuttles. In its 27-year lifespan, Discovery completed 39 successful missions for NASA. Among its accomplishments was spending a cumulative total of 365 days in space, placing the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit, and launching the Ulysses Probe. It traveled 238 million kilometers through space, in the process orbiting Earth 5,830 times. After such a stellar career, it was thus fitting that Discovery should be the first Space Shuttle to enter retirement, something that occurred on 9 March 2011. As part of Dragon’s re-launch of the complete Space Shuttle fleet in 1/400 scale model form, the third item to be released is Discovery. The actual model portrays the spacecraft as it appeared during STS-124, a flight to the International Space Station (ISS). This mission blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center on 31 May 2008 and returned to Earth on 14 June. On its 35th flight, Discovery delivered to the ISS the Pressurized Module of the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) as well as an associated robotic arm. The model is finely detailed and is impressive as it’s attached to the enormous External Tank (ET) and two Solid Rocket Boosters (SRB). For convenient display, the whole assembly comes with its own stand. Space fans can now launch their own journey of Discovery with this fully finished model!
