FACTBOX: Shuttle Discovery ferries experiments and supplies

(Reuters) - The U.S. space shuttle Discovery is scheduled to deliver laboratory gear, experiments, equipment, food and supplies to the International Space Station.

Also on board is the station's new flight engineer, Nicole Stott, a rookie astronaut who will swap places with returning station crewmember Timothy Kopra.

Here are highlights of the scheduled 13-day flight, which is NASA's 128th in the shuttle program history and the fourth of five planned for this year.

* Discovery, making its 37th flight, is hauling a cargo pod filled with seven tons of equipment and supplies for the space station. The shuttle also has a 1,800-pound (816 kg) replacement ammonia coolant tank, to be installed by spacewalking astronauts.

* Three spacewalks, each lasting six and half hours, are planned during Discovery's nine-day stay at the station. Stott will join lead spacewalker Danny Olivas for the first outing to remove an empty ammonia tank and to retrieve a European materials science experiment. Swedish astronaut Christer Fuglesang will join Olivas for the second and third outings to install the new tank and to prepare the station for its next connecting hub.

* The shuttle is delivering the station's second exercise treadmill, named after Comedy Central comedian Stephen Colbert, who latched on to a NASA public relations campaign to name the station's next module. Colbert got fans to enter his name as a write-in candidate, winning the contest. NASA chose the name "Tranquility" instead for the module, but adopted Colbert's name as an acronym for the Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill.

* Astronauts will deliver a third U.S.-built sleeping berth for the station crew, bringing the total number of bedrooms in the station to five. A sixth and final crew cabin is scheduled to arrive next year.

* Equipment for materials sciences and fluid physics experiments will be installed in the station's U.S. Destiny laboratory.

* The station will be outfitted with a second freezer to stow science samples. The 1,600-pound (726 kg) freezer, developed by the European Space Agency, will be installed in Japan's Kibo laboratory.

* After Discovery's flight, six shuttle missions remain to complete the station. NASA plans to retire its three-ship fleet in late 2010 or early 2011.

SOURCE: NASA

(Reporting by Irene Klotz in Cape Canaveral; Editing by Pascal Fletcher and Paul Simao)