CAPE
CANAVERAL, Fla. - The space shuttle Endeavour finally beat the weather late
Wednesday as it blasted off on an ambitious, if belated, construction mission to the
International Space Station after five frustrating delays.
Running a
month late, Endeavour roared into the Florida evening sky at 6:03 p.m. EDT
(2203 GMT) from Launch Pad 39A here at the seaside Kennedy Space
Center. The orbiter is ferrying seven
astronauts, vital spare equipment and a Japanese-built
experiment porch to the orbital outpost.
"Persistence
pays off, good luck and Godspeed," NASA launch director Pete Nickolenko told Endeavour's
astronauts just before they successfully launched on the sixth try.
"Endeavour's
patiently waited for this," replied shuttle commander Mark Polansky. "We're
ready to go and we're going to take all of you with us on a great mission."
The shuttle
lifted off on the eve of the 40th anniversary of NASA's Apollo 11 launch, which
sent three Americans thundering toward
the moon atop a massive Saturn V rocket on July 16, 1969. Apollo 11
astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made the first moon landing four days
later while crewmate Michael Collins flew overhead in lunar orbit.
The seven
astronauts aboard Endeavour are not going quite as far as the Apollo 11
crew. They are headed for the International Space Station about 220 miles (354
km) above Earth to deliver vital spare equipment and a Japanese-built
experiment porch to the orbital outpost.
Mission
managers cleared Endeavour to fly today after fears surfaced that one of the
shuttle's power-generating fuel cells was malfunctioning. A faulty cell is not
a risk for launch, but could shorten the planned 16-day mission if it cannot
provide power for as long as planned. After subsequent checks suggested the
fuel cell was functioning within normal limits, NASA decided to go ahead with
launch.
The evening
liftoff capped a series of setbacks that had waylaid Endeavour and its crew
since mid-June. Lightning and thunderstorms foiled three launch attempts over
this last week, while two earlier attempts in June were thwarted by a hydrogen
gas leak from a vent pipe on the shuttle's external fuel tank. That glitch was
later repaired
Tricky
mission at crowded station
Endeavour's
crew has an elaborate
mission lined up with five spacewalks and complex robotic arm maneuvers to install
new hardware on the space station. The shuttle is slated to catch up with the
orbital outpost on Friday at 1:55 p.m. EDT (1755 GMT).
"STS-127
to the International Space Station has an array of objectives," Endeavour
mission specialist Dave Wolf said in a preflight interview. "It's heavy on
spacewalks and robotics and we'll be doing a fair amount of re-supply inside
the space station, so there's a broad mix of activities."
In addition
to Polansky, pilot Doug Hurley and mission specialists Chris Cassidy - who
became the 500th person in space - Julie Payette, Tom Marshburn and Dave Wolf
will fly aboard Endeavour. Payette represents the Canadian Space Agency; the
rest are NASA astronauts.
Cassidy
wore an inside-out baseball cap as a rally hat for good luck before launch,
while Payette blew a kiss to cameras before entering Endeavour.
NASA rookie
spaceflyer Tim Kopra will also ride the shuttle to the station, where he will
replace Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata as a long-duration flight engineer
with the orbiting lab's six-man Expedition 20 crew. Wakata is due to cap off
his station mission and fly home on Endeavour with the STS-127 crew.
When the
shuttle arrives at the space station, the outpost will be more crowded than
it's ever been, with a record 13 people onboard.
"Everyone
knows what it's like to host your in-laws or other family members and friends
over to your home during the holiday season for several days," Thirsk said
in a preflight interview. "Everyone loses some personal space; there are
some inconveniences; there's line-ups at the phone; there's line-ups at the
computer; there's line-ups at the bathroom; and even the preparation of, and
the serving of, meals is something that needs to be tightly coordinated. We're
going to experience the same types of things onboard the space station."
A space
station porch
Packed into
the shuttle's payload bay is an external
porch-like facility for the station's $1 billion Japanese Kibo Laboratory.
The porch will expose science experiments to the space environment. The new
addition will complete the Kibo complex, the largest laboratory on the
International Space Station (ISS).
Cassidy
described the porch, officially called the Japanese Exposed Facility, as about
the size of "four mini-vans."
Endeavour's
cargo also includes a cache of other equipment, including spare parts to keep
the space station going after the shuttle program retires, planned for 2010.
"STS-127,
I like to say, is one of the last major construction missions of the
International Space Station," Payette said in a NASA interview.
"We're hoping that in two years from now it will be all complete and fully
utilized as a scientific laboratory in space."
When
Payette arrives at the station she will reunite with her Canadian colleague
Robert Thirsk, who is a month and a half into a long-duration stay on the ISS
as an Expedition 20 flight engineer. It will be the first time two Canadians
are in space at the same time.
"For a
short period of time we'll have two Canadians on orbit, and we are really
pleased about that," said Pierre Jean, Canada's space station program
manager. "I think it will generate a fair amount of excitement [among
Canadians]."
The shuttle
crew plans to spend their second day in space conducting a detailed scan of
their orbiter's sensitive heat shield for any damage sustained during launch.
Endeavour's
flight is NASA's third shuttle mission of 2009, and follows a May mission by
the shuttle Atlantis to the Hubble Space Telescope. Today's blast off was the
23rd for Endeavour's and marks the 127th shuttle mission ever. NASA plans to
launch seven more shuttle flights by 2010 to complete station construction and
then retire its three-orbiter fleet to make way for its replacement, the Orion
space capsule and its Ares I booster.
Endeavour
and its crew are slated to return to Earth July 31 after completing their
mission to the International Space Station.
SPACE.com
is providing continuous coverage of STS-127 with reporter Clara Moskowitz at
Cape Canaveral and senior editor Tariq Malik in New York. Click here for live mission
updates and SPACE.com's NASA TV video feed.
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