This
story was updated at 12:05 a.m. EDT.
CAPE
CANAVERAL, Fla. - Despite a beginning beleaguered by lightning,
storms
and a last minute glitches, NASA's shuttle
Atlantis rocketed spaceward Saturday with six astronauts and the future of the International Space
Station (ISS) aboard.
Atlantis
launched at 11:14:55 a.m. EDT (1514:55 GMT) from Pad 39B here at NASA's Kennedy
Space Center (KSC) on the last day of its launch window, which was stretched to
the tilt.
"Well,
Brent, it looks like you're long wait is over," NASA launch director Michael
Leinbach told Atlantis
commander Brent Jett just before liftoff. "We wish you all the best luck in
the world, Godspeed and we'll see you in about two weeks."
"Thanks
Mike, we appreciate those words and the effort to make this launch window,"
Jett said, adding that his crew has waited for four years and through two test
missions for their chance to resume ISS construction. "We're ready to get to
work."
Shuttle
pilot Chris
Ferguson and mission specialists Joseph
Tanner, Daniel
Burbank, Heidemarie
Stefanyshyn-Piper and Steven
MacLean - of the Canadian Space Agency - rode Atlantis into orbit with
Jett.
Atlantis' astronaut
crew are hauling a 17.5-ton
load of trusses and wing-like solar arrays to the ISS to mark NASA's first
ISS construction flight since the 2003
Columbia accident.
"We're confident that over the next few weeks, and few years for that matter, NASA is going to prove to our nation, our partners and our friends around the worth that it was worth the wait and the sacrifice," Jett said of resuming ISS construction.
Aboard the
ISS, Expedition 13 commander Pavel Vinogradov and flight engineers Jeffrey
Williams and Thomas Reiter are awaiting the shuttle's arrival. The successful
space shot marked the 116th shuttle launch for NASA and Atlantis' 27th
trip into Earth orbit.
Conquering
delays
Today's
liftoff comes after a series of delays for Atlantis, the last of which
culminated in the failure Friday of one of four liquid hydrogen fuel gauge
sensors in the orbiter's external tank. That sensor worked perfectly during
today's liftoff, NASA officials said.
Other
delays were prompted by a lightning
strike to the shuttle's launch pad, weather threats from a tropical
depression and a power
glitch in a pump motor that helps cool one of the spacecraft's three vital
fuel cells. The fuel cell issue led shuttle officials to scrub
a Sept. 6 launch attempt, but was not in violation of any flight rules.
A busy
mission lies ahead for STS-115 astronauts, beginning with orbital photography
of Atlantis' external tank - shed after reaching orbit - as it fell back toward
Earth. A heat shield inspection is set for tomorrow, followed by a Monday
docking at the ISS and back-to-back spacewalks.
"This is
probably one of the busiest first five days we've done in a very long time,"
John McCullogh, the lead ISS flight director for Atlantis' mission, told SPACE.com.
Orbital
construction zone
The $371.8
million cargo aboard Atlantis is the first of many elements - among them
additional power segments, Russian modules and international
laboratories - slated to launch toward the ISS. The first ISS module,
Russia's Zarya,
launched in 1998, with the last major addition arriving during NASA's STS-113
mission aboard Endeavour in late 2002.
"Clearly we
are into the heart of the assembly of the International Space Station," said
Wayne Hale, NASA's space shuttle program manager, of the STS-115 mission,
adding that its refreshing to once more engage in orbital construction. "We're
flying the shuttle for a purpose, to carry a payload, to create this marvelous
research outpost [so] that we have a toehold in space. It is really the purpose
for what we are here for."
Once complete,
the space station will sport four wing-like solar arrays, weigh a whopping one
million pounds and rival a five-bedroom home in living space, NASA officials
have said. Measured end to end, the orbital laboratory will run about 354 feet,
making it the longest human-built structure ever to fly in space.
"Future
expansion of the station hinges on the ability to power that expansion," NASA
astronaut Doug Wheelock, who will help deliver a critical
connecting node for new ISS modules next year during Atlantis' STS-120
mission, told SPACE.com. "So this is really a critical piece in the
flow."
Completion
of the $100 billion space station stalled as NASA made shuttle
safety enhancements and launched two
test flights to recover from the loss of Columbia and its seven-astronaut
crew. NASA is now aiming to complete the
station with 15 partner nations - which include Canada - by September 2010,
when the three remaining shuttles are to be retired.
"We're
pleased to be where we are right now, "said Benoît Marcotte, station program
director for the Canadian Space Agency which provided the ISS
robotic arm, before today's launch. "We're pleased to see the sequence
starting again."
More than
140 spacewalks - three
of them planned for STS-115 - will have been staged to complete the ISS,
NASA officials said, adding that one-fourth of the agency's shuttle flights
will have been dedicated to building the orbital laboratory.
"Clearly
these are the most complicated spacewalk and assembly tasks that have ever been
done before," Hale said.
From NASA's
perspective, completing the ISS is vital to the U.S. goals of returning
astronauts to the Moon and pushing human explorers further into space.
"What we're
doing in building the space station is really preparing ourselves for Mars, and
of course the Moon," NASA
astronaut Michael Fincke, who served a six-month term aboard the ISS during
2004's Expedition
9 ISS mission, told SPACE.com. "I don't think personally you can
skip any of the steps along the way."
Fincke
added that there is another benefit from the ISS construction effort aside from
the exploration of space. With 16 countries working to complete the massive
space station, the project has proved an object lesson in international
cooperation.
"I always
say that it's great when human beings on this planet work constructively and
not destructively," Fincke said.
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