NASA announced that it’s ready to launch the Discovery shuttle in space on July 13th. The space agency confirmed that it has employed all careful measures to make the flight as safe as possible.

The organization made its decision based on a thorough flight readiness review. NASA said, "We believe this is the cleanest flight we have ever done. We went literally from stem to stern of the vehicle ... to make sure that we did come back smarter and stronger and safer."

"The crew is go for launch. They want us to be go for launch. They don't want to rush to flight but they are ready to return to flight," he said, adding he had met with mission commander Eileen Collins earlier in the day, " commented Michael Griffin, Administrator, NASA.

NASA added that if further problems occurred, it could delay the flight to July 31st at the latest. After that it would have to wait until September to send Discovery into space.

Adding onto the safety precautions, Mike Leinbach, Launch Director at the space center stated that it would be difficult to launch the flight in the middle of July in the afternoon due to rainy season in Florida. The flight is scheduled for launch from Kennedy Space Center.

Moreover, if Discovery is launched and gets damaged along the way, NASA would depart the astronauts to the International Space Station and send in another shuttle, named Atlantis, for rescue. According to officials, Atlantis is in "great shape" for take off.

"We are being as smart about this as we know how to be, but we are up against the limits of our human knowledge," said Griffin. "If someone wants more, they are going to have to find smarter humans."