Editor's Note: This story was updated at 5:25 p.m. EDT.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - NASA's shuttle Discovery rocketed into space
Saturday with a massive Japanese laboratory bound for the International Space
Station.
Discovery shot up into the sky at 5:02 p.m. EDT (2102 GMT) from its
seaside Launch Pad 39A here at NASA's Kennedy Space Center carrying what will
soon be the largest single room aboard the space station - the tour bus-sized
main cabin of the Japan's Kibo ("hope" in Japanese) laboratory.
"While we've all prepared for this event today, the discoveries from
Kibo will definitely offer hope for tomorrow," said Discovery's commander Mark
Kelly just before launch. "Now stand by for the greatest show on Earth."
During their planned
14-day mission, Discovery's seven crewmembers will perform three spacewalks
to install the $1 billion Kibo laboratory, relocate its smaller storage cabin
from its current perch to the main room, and activate the laboratory's robotic
arm. The shuttle is slated to dock at the International Space Station (ISS) on
Monday afternoon.
Watching the launch here was Kelly's identical twin brother, Scott
Kelly, who is also a veteran astronaut. Their father Richard celebrated his
68th birthday while his son Mark launched into space.
"I'm excited for him - it's an amazing experience," Scott Kelly, a
veteran spaceflyer, told SPACE.com this morning. "I think it's a unique
privilege to not only fly in space but then have your brother that you can talk
about it with and he understands exactly what you're talking about 'cause he's
shared those experiences and memories."
Japan's 'hopes' reach space
Discovery's STS-124 mission is the second of three planned shuttle
flights to bring all of Kibo's elements into space. It follows the shuttle
Endeavour's March 2008 flight, which delivered the small storage room, and
precedes a planned spring 2009 mission to deliver Kibo's porch-like external
platform.
The launch of Kibo's
main element represents the fruition of more than 20 years of work and
planning by Japan to add its own segment to the space station. The new module
is about 37 feet (11 meters) long and about 14.4 feet (4.4 meters) wide. It
weighs about 32,000 pounds (14,514 kg).
"It shows ISS is coming into the stage of the truly international," said
Yoshiyuki Hasegawa, Japanese Experiment Module program manager. "This Kibo is
known for the Japanese people, even child and old man and government senator.
Even my mother knows that Kibo is the international station and made in Japan."
Japan's stake in Discovery's mission is embodied by crewmember Akihiko
Hoshide, a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut who will serve as the
resident Kibo expert when he and his crewmates work to install the lab on the
ISS.
"This is a big step for the Japanese community, the science community
especially, because that means that they can start their own science," Hoshide
said before launch. "It's a big milestone for Japan."
Crew's dreams
Other STS-124
astronauts include pilot Ken Ham, mission specialist Karen Nyberg - who
became the 50th woman to fly in space with today's launch - and fellow NASA
spaceflyers Rob Garan, Mike Fossum and Greg Chamitoff.
Chamitoff will stay aboard the orbital outpost after Discovery departs,
replacing U.S. astronaut Garrett Reisman as a member of the ISS's three-man
Expedition 17 crew. Reisman is slated to return with Discovery during its
planned June 14 landing.
"The idea of just living in space for a long
period of time and knowing what it's like to live there, I think, is one thing
I'm looking forward to," Chamitoff, a first-time spaceflyer, said before
flight. "That's going to be an amazing experience up there just to have one
part of one step of getting humanity up to the stars."
Besides dropping off the Kibo lab and Chamitoff, Discovery is hauling a
few other important pieces of cargo.
The shuttle is carrying a replacement pump to fix the space
station's faulty toilet. The orbital loo, the only one on the ISS except
for the facilities on the docked Soyuz spacecraft, is working partially, though
it is inconvenient and time-consuming. Space station residents are hoping the
new pump will fix the problem, though previous spare pumps have so far failed
to do so.
Discovery is also carrying an action figure of the Buzz Lightyear
character from the 1995 Disney-Pixar movie "Toy Story." By flying into space,
the toy will perform educational demonstrations for kids and also fulfill
Buzz's goal of reaching "infinity and beyond."
Landmark trip
Today's launch marks the third of up to five shuttle flights planned for
the busy 2008 year. Discovery's voyage is the 123rd space shuttle mission to
fly and the 26th trip to the ISS. NASA aims to retire the shuttle program in
2010, with just 11 more shuttle flights planned to complete space station
construction and overhaul the Hubble Space Telescope. Discovery's
STS-124 mission marks the shuttle's 35th trip to space.
In an unusual move, Discovery launched without its sensor-tipped robotic
arm inspection boom aboard, in order to make room for its giant Japanese
payload, the largest ever launched to the ISS.
Since Columbia's tragedy in 2003, astronauts usually spend the day
following launch using the boom to inspect their orbiter's heat shield tiling
for damage such as that which caused the earlier disaster. Luckily, the previous
shuttle flight, Endeavour's STS-123 mission, left Discover's boom waiting for
it on the space station.
"After we launch, before we rendezvous, we're going to use the shuttle
arm and the camera that's on the end of the shuttle arm to do as much of the
rudimentary inspection as we can of the wings of the orbiter," Ham said in a
preflight interview. "After we undock, we will do the traditional detailed
survey of the thermal protection system of the orbiter so that we can guarantee
that we are safe to enter."
The shuttle is scheduled to dock with the ISS at 1:54 p.m. EDT (1754
GMT) on Monday.
Upon the shuttle's arrival in space, mission control congratulated Kelly and his team.
"It's good to be back, and it's good for everybody to be here," Kelly replied
NASA is broadcasting Discovery's STS-124 mission live on
NASA TV. Click here for
SPACE.com's shuttle mission updates and a live NASA TV feed.
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