Will Blast Off On Atlantis In Summer 2007

With Discovery set to fly into space just 10 days from now, NASA is already looking ahead to the fifth mission set to fly after the shuttle program returns to space... and the agency says it has found just the right person to lead that mission.

She's US Air Force colonel Pamela Melroy, who has already piloted the shuttle on two previous missions.

Joining her on the mission to the ISS will be pilot George Zamka, and mission specialists Scott Parazynski, Doug Wheelock, Mike Foreman and Paolo Nespoli.

NASA reports STS-120 will deliver the Italian-built Node 2 module that eventually will connect to European and Japanese science laboratories.

When Melroy and her crew take flight on the STS-120 mission aboard Atlantis in late summer of 2007, she will become only the second female commander of a shuttle mission.

As you'll recall, the first female commander of a shuttle mission was Eileen Collins, who commanded Discovery's first "Return to Flight" mission last year... and who has since retired from the agency.

FMI: www.nasa.gov