Shuttle Endeavour Rockets Toward Space Station

This story was updated at 5:30 a.m. ET.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The cloudy predawn sky above Florida ignited into a spectacular blaze Tuesday as NASA's shuttle Endeavour roared into a high-speed pursuit of the International Space Station (ISS).

Endeavour and its seven-astronaut crew successfully left Earth at 2:28 a.m. EDT (0628 GMT), riding a towering column of white smoke in a rare night liftoff from Launch Pad 39A here at Kennedy Space Center. Led by commander Dominic Gorie, the STS-123 mission crew is now poised to catch up to the space station Wednesday night.

"God's truly blessed us with a beautiful night here," Gorie said minutes before Endeavour rumbled spaceward. "Let's light 'em up and give them a show."

During their planned 16-day mission — the longest station-bound flight yet — the crew will perform no less than five spacewalks to install a giant Canadian robot, deliver the first piece of Japan's school bus-sized Kibo laboratory and conduct a series of on-orbit science experiments.

Riding aboard the orbiter with Gorie are pilot Gregory H. Johnson, mission specialists Robert Behnken, Mike Foreman, Rick Linnehan, Garrett Reisman and Japanese astronaut Takao Doi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The launch marks the first spaceflight Johnson, Behnken, Foreman and Reisman.

Reisman will stay aboard the ISS as a member of the Expedition 16 and 17 space station crews. He will relieve European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Leopold Eyharts, who will return home on board Endeavour.

"He is our most precious payload," Johnson said of Reisman prior to launch. "We're taking him to the space station and we're going to leave him there."

Special delivery

When Endeavour docks at the space station late Wednesday, the crew will quickly get to work by retrieving pieces of a massive robot named Dextre with the shuttle's robotic arm.

Astronauts are slated to spend two spacewalking days assembling the 1.72-ton robot, which will use two 11-foot (3.4-meter) arms, gripper-like "hands" and a tool belt to gently replace failed components outside the space station. The Canadian Space Agency built the new robot to help relieve station astronauts of the more routine maintenance work outside the ISS.

"Dextre is 'Gigantor the Space Age Robot,' is what I think," said Linnehan, who will partake in the device's assembly. "He's massive and crawls around the station. He's got two big arms and he's got all these appendages and tools to plug in. It's pretty wild."

Before Dextre is put together outside of the ISS, however, astronauts willinstall the Japanese Logistics Pressurized (JLP) module — that nation's first room in space, and the first of three Kibo laboratory components.

"For the first time we'll have representatives from four nations; from Russia, from the U.S., from Europe and from Japan," Doi said of the JLP's installation, calling his own participation a dream come true. "Some people have been working on this program more than 25 years, it's just unbelievable."

The STS-123 crew will also spend two other days outside the airlock to test heat-resistant tile repair methods and replace bearings in a damaged solar array joint.

Beacon in the night

Today's successful liftoff is the second of six flights NASA planned for an ambitious 2008 launch schedule, and marks the 122nd space shuttle mission, the 25th flight to the space station and Endeavour's 21st launch.

The predawn launch is only the second after-dark flight in five years — the latest was shuttle Discovery's launch in late 2006. NASA temporarily halted night launches because it's difficult to spot errant chunks of ice or insulation that can shed from the external fuel tank.

Such debris can damage the heat-resistant underbelly of a space shuttle, but Endeavour is using a new camera flash system for the first time that will help technicians better examine the shuttle's disposable 15-story tank after launch.

"We're somewhat hampered because of the night launch," LeRoy Cain, chair of NASA's mission management team Sunday, but noted that the flash unit should be a boon to post-launch inspections. "I think it should be pretty spectacular."

Orbital inspection

Perhaps more importantly, however, astronauts will scope for thermal shield damage with the space shuttle's sensor-tipped inspection boom.

"That's where we really verify that the orbiter is safe to come home," Cain said.

STS-123 astronauts will unberth the 50-foot (15-meter) boom Tuesday evening and begin an eight-hour inspection of the shuttle's wing leading edges and nose cap, which absorb most of the heat of atmospheric reentry. Space station crew will also photograph the orbiter's underside shortly before the spacecraft docks at the orbital outpost.

Endeavour is slated to arrive at the space station late Wednesday at 11:27 p.m. EDT (0327 GMT March 13) and return to Earth the evening of March 26.

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