STS-121 and Orbiter

I feel a little bad. Here I am a space freak, and I haven't blogged a word about the current shuttle mission to the ISS, STS-121 - a mission that seems to be going fantastically well, I'm happy to say. I was in Australia when Discovery launched, with limited web and TV access, so I missed the lead-up and the early details. There's no shortage of mission information at NASA and other sources, of course.

As usual, the Orbiter community has been following along, with a great effort by "David413" and friends to update the Shuttle Fleet add-on (e.g., Discovery 3.9.1) and to provide a huge STS-121 expansion pack to allow faithful simulation of the actual mission (check for updates to this). David has also provided a new add-on of the ISS in its current configuration (11A, the standard Orbiter ISS is the future, complete version).

Finally a reminder that Gene Harm has some of the best advice for flying the shuttle in Orbiter on his web site (including the pic above).