HOUSTON — Less
than 24 hours after space shuttle Endeavour's successful launch set a predawn Florida
sky ablaze, NASA said the mission is going well despite two glitches and a strange
object spotted in launch video.
"It
was a beautiful, awesome night
launch," said Mike Moses, lead shuttle flight director for the STS-123
mission, noting that an on-orbit inspection of Endeavour's heat shield progressed
without any hiccups. "It's going great, no issues to report there."
Led by
commander Dominic Gorie, the seven-astronaut
crew of Endeavour is slated to deliver the first of Japan's three-piece Kibo laboratory and a monstrous two-armed robot named Dextre to the
International Space Station (ISS).
Their
record-breaking 16-day mission will be packed with no less than five 6.5-hour
spacewalks to continue assembly of the growing orbital outpost.
Mystery
debris
Several
hours after Gorie's crew launched into space on Tuesday morning at 2:28 a.m. EDT
(0628 GMT), spacecraft communicators told Gorie that a strange object was spotted
in launch video 10 seconds into the liftoff.
The object,
seen as a white streak in ascent imagery, originates from a distance away from
the shuttle's now-discarded 15-story external fuel tank, then disappears. Moses
said he's not sure if the object vanishes because it slammed into the nose cap
of Endeavour, or if it simply slipped behind the port-side of the orbiter.
"We
don't know what it is yet, and we're still looking at it," Moses said of
the mystery object, which he does not think is an errant chunk of ice or insulating
foam shed from the orange external tank. "The imagery is very inconclusive."
Detailed
inspection
Whatever
the case, Moses said he's confident Endeavour will be in good shape for a March
26th landing following a standard yet detailed
inspection of the orbiter's toughest heat-resistant tiling.
"For the
health of this orbiter, I can kind of put it out of my mind because [we've
scanned] the nose cap at the front end of the orbiter," he said.
Commander Gorie,
shuttle pilot Gregory H. Johnson and mission specialist Takao Doi of Japan performed the six-hour inspection using the shuttle's 50-foot (15-meter)
sensor-tipped extension boom.
Moses also
noted that two problems that occurred during launch — the failure of a heat-dissipating
system and a thruster-controlling computer — are of little concern for the completion
of the STS-123 mission because of redundant systems and potential fixes.
Docking
day
Now that
Endeavour's reinforced carbon-carbon tiling on its wing leading edges and nose
cap are inspected, the crew is slated to dock with the space station this evening
around 11:25 p.m. EDT (0325 GMT March 13).
"After
we dock, we don't stop there," Moses said, noting that operations to drop
of the pieces of Canada's
Dextre robot will begin shortly after Endeavour latches onto the station. "We're
going to go get that pallet out and stick it on the station. It's a very busy day."
Moses noted
that all seven astronauts on board Endeavour seemed to be chipper as they
worked through their second day in space, and none seem to have any health
concerns seen during the previous shuttle mission.
"You
could tell just by watching them that they're adapted to space really well and
having a good time," Moses said of onboard video the crew beamed down to
Mission Control. "I think they're feeling great."
NASA is broadcasting Endeavour's STS-123 mission live on NASA TV. Click here for SPACE.com's shuttle mission coverage and NASA TV feed.
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