It wasn’t the shot heard ’round the world, but for NASA it was an important success in its plan to help finish the contruction of the Space Station. It will take about 15 flights of the Space Shuttle from now until 2010, so today’s flight was important in reaching that goal.

The astronauts looked ready for the historic flight (first on July 4th) as they headed to the Shuttle elevator to be strapped and ready for count-down. Here are a couple of images.

If you want to follow the Flight of Discovery, you can go NASA’s site for updates and video.

It was a great day for the space program, and NASA.