Carrying Canadian seeds, shuttle readies for launch

As shuttle Discovery gets set for a rare twilight launch on Monday, Canadian researchers on Earth will have a treasure trove of experiments and robotics on board doing work along with the STS-131 crew.

Willow seeds from a University of New Brunswick experiment will ride in the backseat of the orbiter. The idea is to grow the seeds in orbit and observe how microgravity affects the density of cell growth.

The upshot? Potential help for the forestry industry. Trees picked for paper production need to have a dense collection of cells inside. If the trees are set for lumber, they need to have strong connections between the cell walls.

Understanding how trees grow and helping to improve the process through genetic engineering could mean big bucks for forestry. Called Cambium, this experiment is the second Canadian seed batch to fly in recent months.

Final 'rookie' flight

With Discovery almost on its way to orbit, the final three missions of the shuttle program are coming up fast. This crew will be the last group of seven to fly on the shuttle, and the last one to include first-time flyers on board.

NASA is pushing to get all the big pieces of the International Space Station installed properly before the shuttle program's scheduled shutdown in September 2010.

On this trip, the astronauts will haul with them the Leonardo multi-purpose logistics module, which will hold science experiments and food lockers for the station crews.

"Every one of the remaining missions is an important mission for us," NASA test director Steve Payne told The Associated Press. 

"Because we only have a few left, we have to get everything that we're going to get uphill on these next few missions."

Canuck arms and eyes

The astronauts will depend on the robotic Canadarms to get Leonardo moved and installed properly. One spacewalker, Clay Anderson, will even ride up on the station's Canadarm2 to the side of one of the station's science module to take some experiments off the exterior.

TriDAR technology will also take its second test drive in orbit. This advanced docking system is supposed to sense the position of satellites and other objects in orbit without the need for sticking special sensors on the outside for computers to read.

Built by MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates, the system uses 3-D imaging and lasers to get the job done.

As per usual, Canadian technology will also scan the bottom of the shuttle for potential cracks and problems with the tiles. Using the Canadarm, astronauts will scan with a camera built by Ottawa's Neptec, using software from fellow Canadian firm QNX.

Rare twilight viewing

Discovery is set to launch at 6:21 a.m. Eastern on Monday, only the fifth shuttle mission to rise near the same time as the sun. Space watchers along the entire Eastern Seaboard will be able to see the orbiter climb to orbit.

If the skies are clear enough, sunlight will reflect off the white shuttle and its orange fuel tank, with potential rainbow or halo effects happening through the hydrogen and oxygen fire propelling Discovery upwards.

There's still much doubt in the United States about where the space program will go next. In February, an announcement by U.S. President Barack Obama implied that his country would rely on private contractors to get to orbit, shuttering the announced moon-to-Mars Constellation program.

That will have to meet the approval of Congress. With Floridian and Texan legislature members worrying about space-centric jobs in their communities, an uproar ensued. Obama will hold a space summit on April 15 in Orlando to discuss his plans further.

With files from The Associated Press