Space Shuttle Discovery has entered the final phase before the May 31 launch, with technicians working on the “finishing touches” at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. There have been no issues reported so far, and the final countdown for the Sunday launch has already began.

Discovery’s STS-124 mission is one of three flights to launch components of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Kibo laboratory and install the Kibo Japanese Pressurized Module (JPM) and its remote manipulator system (RMS) on the International Space Station.

NASA’s Test Director Jeff Spaulding said that after all the hard work and preparation, both the shuttle and its crew are ready for the flight. Tomorrow looks like a good day for launch, weather predictions say, and all systems are in great shape.

According to the Shuttle Weather Office Kathy Winters, some isolated coastal showers could appear in the morning hours, but an afternoon breeze will clear the coast and move the showers to the island. Overall, there is an 80 percent chance for good launch weather tomorrow.

Discovery will be in charge of delivering, in addition to the Kibo components, new station crew member Greg Chamitoff. At the same time, it will be in charge of bringing Flight Engineer Garrett Reisman back home, after three months aboard the International Space Station, NASA announced.

The STS-124 mission will include three spacewalks, as follows: on day 4, astronauts Ronald J. Garan Jr. and Michael E. Fossum will transfer the Orbiter Boom Sensor back to the shuttle from its temporary location (during the last mission, the Boom Sensor was left at the station for lack of room) and then prepare for the JPM removal from the shuttle’s payload bay.

The second spacewalk will take place two days after the first one. Garan and Fossum will have the mission to install covers and external television equipment on the JPM and remove covers on the RMS, as well as prepare for the flight day 7 relocation of the Japanese Logistics Module.

The third and final spacewalk will be performed by the same astronauts, whose primary mission will be to replace a failed hydrogen tank assembly on the station’s truss with a spare one that has been temporarily stored on one of the station’s external stowage platforms.

The 32,000 pounds module will be the station’s largest laboratory and will be the second component of Japan's laboratory complex to fly to the station. The first, the Japanese Experiment Logistics Module, was launched in March on shuttle mission STS-123.