Space Shuttle Discovery launches on STS-124 carrying the second portion of the Japanese Kibō module to the International Space Station.

Space Shuttle Discovery is a retired American Space Shuttle orbiter. The spaceplane was one of the orbiters from NASA's Space Shuttle program and the third of five fully operational orbiters to be built. Its first mission, STS-41-D, flew from August 30 to September 5, 1984. Over 27 years of service it launched and landed 39 times, aggregating more spaceflights than any other spacecraft as of December 2024. The Space Shuttle launch vehicle had three main components: the Space Shuttle orbiter, a single-use central fuel tank, and two reusable solid rocket boosters. Nearly 25,000 heat-resistant tiles cover the orbiter to protect it from high temperatures on re-entry.

STS-124 was the 35th mission of Space Shuttle Discovery. It went to the International Space Station on this mission. Discovery launched on May 31, 2008, at 17:02 EDT, moved from an earlier scheduled launch date of May 25, 2008, and landed safely at the Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility, at 11:15 EDT on June 14, 2008. Its objective was to deliver the largest module of the space station – Kibō, the Japanese Experiment Module pressurized section. The mission is also referred to as ISS-1J by the ISS program.

Kibō , also known as the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM), is a Japanese science module for the International Space Station (ISS) developed by JAXA. It is the largest single ISS module, and is attached to the Harmony module. The first two pieces of the module were launched on Space Shuttle missions STS-123 and STS-124. The third and final components were launched on STS-127.

The International Space Station (ISS) is a large space station that was assembled and is maintained in low Earth orbit by a collaboration of five space agencies and their contractors: NASA, Roscosmos (Russia), ESA (Europe), JAXA (Japan), and CSA (Canada). As the largest space station ever constructed, it primarily serves as a platform for conducting scientific experiments in microgravity and studying the space environment.