5 Cool Facts About NASA's Space Shuttle Discovery , interesting facta about NASA

● Cool Facts About NASA's Space Shuttle Discovery ,

1. Discovery Launched the Hubble Space Telescope:

NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver, at podium, speaks to those in attendance at Apron W after the 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA) with space shuttle Discovery mounted on top rolled to a halt at Washington Dulles International Airport, Tuesday, April 17, 2012 in Sterling, Va. NASA will transfer Discovery to the National Air and Space Museum to begin its new mission to commemorate past achievements in space. 

2. NASA's most flown space shuttle

NASA's space shuttle Discovery took its last flight on April 17, 2012, riding on the back of a modified 747 jet from Kennedy Space Center in Florida to Washington, D.C., where it will go on display at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum.

Here are some interesting facts about Discovery, the leader of NASA's now-retired shuttle :

2.World's Most-Flown Space Shuttle 

Space shuttle Discovery sails high over the southwestern coast of Morocco in this image taken by International Space Station astronauts just after the two vehicles undocked on March 7, 2011 during the STS-133 mission. 

Discovery flew 39 space missions during its operational life, the first in 1984 and the last one in 2011. It notched more spaceflights than any other space shuttle, or any other spacecraft for that matter.

3.Discovery Spent Entire Year in Orbit

Over the course of its 39 missions, Discovery logged a total of 365 days in space. It also put 148,221,675 miles on its odometer, another space shuttle record. The miles traveled by Discovery could have carried it to the moon and back more than 300 times.

4.Discovery Is Really Dirty

At NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, shuttle Discovery pauses for photos during its move called "rollover" from Orbiter Processing Facility-3 to the nearby Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) on Sept. 9, 2010. 

5.     Discovery Took Four Years to Build

The most prolific space shuttle in NASA’s fleet is Discovery, which will fly its last mission in February/March 2011. But NASA had to build Discovery before it could fly its 39 space missions and here is how it was done. In this view, Rockwell engineers check the fit between Discovery’s upper and lower forward cabin sections on Feb. 26, 1982.

Work began on Discovery in 1979, and the shuttle wasn't completed until October 1983 in Palmdale, Calif. It was then flown aboard a 747 carrier aircraft to NASA's Kennedy Space Center, where it launched on its maiden mission in August 1984.