Space shuttle Discovery blasted off its seaside launch pad on Saturday, defying the odds of poor weather and ending the ban on night-time flights imposed after the 2003 Columbia disaster.
With its twin booster rockets blazing, the shuttle and seven astronauts lifted off at 8:47:35pm EST (1.47am GMT on Sunday) with a thundering roar and a brilliant white light that momentarily dispelled the darkness at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.
High winds had threatened to delay the flight for the second time in as many days but the gusts calmed, clearing the way for Nasa’s third shuttle mission in six months.
”You’ve got a lot of smiling faces up here,” Discovery commander Mark Polansky radioed to mission control in Houston as the shuttle slipped into orbit.
Five of Discovery‘s astronauts have never flown in space before, including the European Space Agency’s Christer Fuglesang, who became the first Swede in orbit.
The shuttle is headed to the International Space Station where astronauts face the daunting task of hooking up a new electrical system needed before additional laboratory modules can be installed. Docking is scheduled for Monday.
”It looks like you guys have some company headed your way,” astronaut Richard Davis at mission control told the space station crew. Replied station commander Michael Lopez-Alegria, ”We’re going to head out and turn on the porch lights so they can find us.”
Nasa needs to finish assembling the half-built $100-billion outpost before the shuttles, the only spaceships designed for the job, are retired in 2010.
Rewiring the power grid
The goal of Discovery‘s 12-day flight is to install a new piece of the station’s exterior structure and rewire the power grid, a task complicated by the fact that the outpost cannot be without power for any period of time.
The shuttle is also ferrying a new crewmember to the station, astronaut Sunita Williams.
Discovery‘s mission is Nasa’s fourth flight since the accident and the second devoted to station assembly. Any serious problems during Discovery‘s flight could affect the 13 additional flights needed to finish assembly.
The crew’s first job, like all flights since the accident, will be to inspect the shuttle’s heat shield for damage. Columbia was destroyed after a piece of foam insulation fell off its fuel tank during launch and damaged its heat shield. The shuttle broke apart as it attempted to fly through the atmosphere for landing, killing all seven astronauts aboard.
Nasa had banned night flights to make sure cameras had good lighting to see any debris flying away during liftoff. But with improvements to the tank, as well as radar and other systems to monitor for debris strikes, Nasa decided to return to night flights, opening up more shuttle launch opportunities.
Discovery is due back at the Kennedy Space Centre on December 21.
The crew includes first-time fliers Fuglesang, Williams, Nicholas Patrick, Joan Higginbotham and pilot William Oefelein. Also aboard is Polansky, who is making his second flight, and Robert Curbeam, the flight engineer and lead spacewalker, who is flying for the third time. – Reuters