Shuttle Launch Sets Off International Celebration

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Space shuttle Endeavour's successful launch not only lit up the predawn sky this morning, but also the faces of Japanese and Canadian members of the International Space Station (ISS) program.

The 100-ton orbiter punctured a thin layer over clouds hanging over launch Pad 39A here at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) at 2:28 a.m. EDT (0628 GMT) Tuesday morning, propelling seven astronauts into space along with two of the newest components of the space station: A two-armed Canadian robot and the first piece of Japan's three-part Kibo laboratory.

"I would characterize this as the international year," said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for space operations, of Endeavour's multi-national cargo and four remaining shuttle flights for 2008. "We're really bringing our partners on board space station, we're learning to operate as an international team."

Commander Dominic Gorie will lead teh STS-123 crew on a record-breaking 16-day mission to the space station. During the first three of five planned spacewalks, astronauts will unberth and install the Japanese Logistics Pressurized module and piece together Dextre, a 1.72-ton robot designed to reduce the number of dangerous spacewalks performed by astronauts.

"The addition of Dextre … to the International Space Station is visible proof to Canada's commitment to the future," said Guy Bujold, president of Canadian Space Agency (CSA). "Canadians from coast to coast to coast will be watching as the crew of STS-123 and the station … lift Dextre out of payload bay to its new home in space."

Minor issues

Mike Leinbach, shuttle launch director, said Endeavour's launch was one of the smoothest in NASA history. Only clouds hanging about a mile over the launch pad, he said, was of any but little concern.

"There was no danger at all," Leinbach said of the cloud cover, but noted that it did make filming Endeavour's ascent into space somewhat tricky. "The [launch] vehicle does disappear very quickly when the clouds are that low … but everything was perfectly fine."

LeRoy Cain, chair of NASA's mission management team, said the space shuttle did suffer a cooling system failure and loss of a thruster-controlling electronics unit, but explained that backup systems were turned on immediately after the glitches occurred.

"It's a loss of redundancy," Cain said of the flash evaporator and thruster computer glitches. "In all likelihood we'll recover [those], and even if we don't recover [them] we can complete the mission nominally."

At the time of the early morning briefing at KSC, both Leinbach and Cain said that they had seen no worrisome debris impacting Endeavour's heat-resistant underbelly in launch video.

"We didn't see anything that caught our attention," Cain said of debris in launch footage. "[But] we will pore over that video data over the next several days."

Busy mission ahead

Flying with commander Gorie are pilot Gregory H. Johnson, mission specialists Robert Behnken, Mike Foreman, Rick Linnehan, Garrett Reisman and astronaut Takao Doi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

Shortly after reaching orbit, Gorie graduated the four rookie spaceflyers by upgrading their silver astronaut wing pins to gold versions.

"We've got … folks on the flight deck that are out of uniform and we're swapping the astronaut wings," Gorie said.

The veteran spaceflyer will dock Endeavour at space station Wednesday night, after which the crew will kick off nearly two weeks of orbital work to install Dextre and Japan's orbital closet, as the crew have called it.

Gerstenmaier said he can't wait to see the astronauts get to work.

"We're looking forward to a very challenging time on orbit," Gerstenmaier said. "This is really a neat time and the teams are ready."

Endeavour is slated to begin surveying its thermally shielded underbelly this evening around 8:53 p.m. EDT (0053 GMT March 12), and should wrap up the work by 2:38 a.m. EDT (0638 GMT). The 100-ton orbiter is slated to dock at the space station Wednesday at 11:27 p.m. EDT (0327 GMT March 13).

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