After years of gut-wrenching analysis, dozens of equipment modifications and repeated delays, NASA's shuttle launch team said on Sunday it saw no hurdles in its plan to launch shuttle Discovery on the first mission since the 2003 Columbia accident. "Discovery is in excellent shape as we prepare for Wednesday's launch," said NASA test director Jeff Spaulding, according to Reuters. The routine three-day countdown to launch was to begin at 6 p.m. The seven members of the Discovery crew arrived at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida a day earlier. "It sure does feel good to be back in the saddle again. It's been too long," said Discovery's payload manager, Scott Higginbothan, said at a news briefing on Sunday. The shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas during a failed landing attempt on Feb. 1, 2003. The accident was blamed on technical failures -- a piece of foam debris hit Columbia and damaged its wing during launch -- and poor management practices. All seven astronauts aboard the orbiter were killed. The U.S. space agency immediately grounded its three remaining shuttles and pledged to find the problems, fix the shuttle and return to flight. --More 2351 Local Time 2051 GMT
