IT looks like astronaut Nicole Stott will finally depart for space today - after a series of technical issues delayed her journey by four days. 

Nicole, who is married to Manxman Chris the chairman of local space company ManSat, was due to make history on Monday by travelling to space on the final ever flight of the space shuttle Discovery.

The mission – STS-133 – was put on hold after engineers found technical issues with the shuttle.

According to NASA the shuttle will launch today. Space shuttle managers met at 5am EDT to begin loading the shuttle’s external tank with more than 500,000 gallons of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen.

If all goes to plan the shuttle should launch at 3.04pm EDT.

Also see: Mission delayed again for Nicole 
              Astronaut Nicole on historic space mission