Discovery readied for Dec. 7 launch

Space shuttle Discovery was moved to the launchpad at the Kennedy Space Center to await a launch that could be as early as Dec. 7 -- an effort to avoid potential year-end computer glitches.

The worry is that shuttle computers aren’t designed to make the change from the 365th day of the old year to the first day of the new year while in flight. NASA has never had a shuttle in space Dec. 31 or Jan. 1.

“We’ve just never had the computers up and going when we’ve transitioned from one year to another,” Discovery astronaut Joan Higginbotham said. “We’re not really sure how they’re going to operate.”