After weeks of delay, Discovery, the space shuttle is finally ready to take off on Wednesday evening for a 2 week mission to the International Space Station.

Mike Leinbach, the Launch Director for Discovery confirmed that they weren’t having any issues and the NASA team was anxious to go.

Discovery had to be delayed for about a month due to concerns regarding 3 Hydrogen valves in the engine compartment.

The valves that had paper-thin cracks have now been replaced.

Some facts about the shuttle -

• ?This is the 125th shuttle flight and the 36th for Discovery
• The 2 week mission includes 4 spacewalk
• A 31,000 pound final truss segment will be installed with 2 solar array wings
• Koichi Wakata, a Japanese astronaut willl spend the next couple of months on the shuttle.
• He will replace Sandra Magnus who will retun to Earth from Discovery
• 2 flags among which is a green flag representing the Andretti Racing Team
• 8 chocolate bars will be taken to the space
• You can get latest updates by following NASA on Twitter