This story was updated at 2:42 a.m. EDT.
The space
shuttle Discovery turned night into day above Florida late Friday as it blazed
into the midnight sky carrying seven astronauts bound for the International
Space Station.
Discovery
rocketed into the dark sky above NASA's Kennedy Space Center at 11:59
p.m. EDT (0359 Aug. 29 GMT) to begin a 13-day space station resupply
mission after two launch delays earlier this week.
"This time
Mother Nature is cooperating so it looks like third time really is the charm,"
NASA launch director Pete Nickolenko told Discovery's crew just before liftoff.
"Thanks to
everyone who helped prepare for this mission," shuttle commander Rick Sturckow
radioed back. "Let's go step up the science on the International Space Station."
Stormy
weather threatened to delay the flight during the countdown, with several
lightning strikes within 5 miles (8 km) of the launch pad, but abated in time
for the successful liftoff. Some minor bits of ice were spotted on Discovery's
fuel tank before launch, but were not a concern for launch, NASA officials
said.
"You know, I'll take it," said Mike Moses, head of Discovery's mission management team, after launch. "It'll be an exciting and challenging mission and we look forward on getting to it."
Bad weather
thwarted Discovery's first launch attempt on Tuesday and was closely followed
by a hydrogen fuel valve glitch that prevented a second try. The fill-and-drain
valve is a critical component in Discovery's main propulsion system. It worked
flawlessly during the shuttle's midnight launch Friday.
Colbert
in space
Discovery
is hauling nearly 8 tons of cargo to the International Space Station, including
new science gear, crew supplies and a treadmill named after television
comedian Stephen Colbert. NASA named the treadmill for Colbert after the
"Colbert Report" host's fans won an online poll to name a new space station
room.
Despite
Colbert's popularity, NASA named the station module Tranquility - after the
Apollo 11 moon base - but renamed the treadmill the Combined Operational Load
Bearing External Resistance Treadmill (or COLBERT) as a consolation prize. NASA
invited Colbert to watch his treadmill namesake launch into space, but the
comedian was unable to attend. He did, however, record a video message for
NASA.
"I couldn't
be prouder that my treadmill will soon be installed on the International Space
Station to help finally slim all those
chubby astronauts," Colbert said in the televised message this week. "You
guys and gals are our ambassadors to the universe, don't make us look bad. Put
down the astronaut ice cream tubby!"
Launching
to space with Sturckow on Discovery are shuttle pilot Kevin Ford and mission
specialists Patrick Forrester, Jose Hernandez, Danny Olivas, Nicole Stott and
Swedish astronaut Christer Fuglesang, who represents the European Space Agency.
The mission is only the second flight to boost the space station's population
to 13 people since the outpost's permanent crew increased to six spaceflyers in
late May.
Three
spacewalks are planned for their STS-128 mission to upgrade the space station
and replace a massive ammonia coolant tank that weighs as much as a small car.
Each of the
astronauts flashed different hand signs to cameras, presumably messages to
family and friends, before boarding Discovery. Hernandez, a former migrant farm
worker turned astronaut, waved at a video camera, tapped his heart and said "I
love you all" before boarding Discovery. He and his wife have five children.
NASA
lowered flags at the Kennedy Space Center to half-mast at the launch site in
memory of Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, who died of brain cancer
earlier this week.
More
science for station
Discovery's
six-man,
one-woman crew will deliver a mix of supplies and science gear to
the space station, as well as a new crewmember, Nicole Stott, to join the
outpost's six-person Expedition 20 crew.
Stott will
replace fellow NASA astronaut Tim Kopra aboard the station as a flight
engineer. Kopra has lived aboard the station since mid-July and will return to
Earth on Discovery. Stott, meanwhile, is beginning a three-month space mission
- the first spaceflight of her career. She said she's looking forward to
settling into life in orbit.
"I'm
looking forward to that point in time where I just one day think 'Wow, this
doesn't seem weird anymore. It seems normal not to have to walk anymore,'" she
said in a recent briefing.
Packed in
Discovery's payload bay is a cargo pod crammed with about 15,200 pounds (6,894
kg) of equipment and supplies.
"Most of
the things, I think, which we bring up is to kind of both keep the six crew
alive there and also to make it a little more comfortable life for them,"
Fuglesang said in a NASA interview. "So we have a lot of food, for example. But
we bring up several big facilities."
Some of
those new facilities include a new freezer for storing biological samples, two
refrigerator-sized racks for materials science and fluid physics research, as
well as a small drawer with six mice inside as part of a bone loss study. The
mice will return to Earth during a November shuttle mission.
Overnight
flight
The
astronauts aboard Discovery are following an off-kilter overnight schedule that
requires them to sleep in the morning and wake up for their next day's work in
the late afternoon. They will go to sleep Saturday at 6:29 a.m. EDT (1029 GMT)
and are due to wake up in afternoon at about 2:29 p.m. EDT (1829 GMT) to begin
their first full day in space, one aimed at inspecting their heat shield for
damage.
Bill Gerstenmaier, chief of NASA's spaceflight operations, said an early review found that Discovery's external fuel tank did not shed excessive amounts of foam insulation like that seen during the shuttle Endeavour's launch last month. That preliminary look, he said, found little evidence of any foam loss at all, though more analysis will be performed as a standard check.
"The tank appeared to perform extremely well," Gerstenmaier said. "We didn't see anything like we saw on the last tank." NASA has kept a close eye on foam debris during launch since the 2003 Columbia tragedy.
Friday's
launch marked the 128th shuttle mission for NASA and the 30th fight to the
International Space Station. It is Discovery's 37th flight and NASA's 33rd shuttle
mission to launch at night. It came just two days ahead of the 25th anniversary
of the shuttle's first flight in 1984. The mission is also NASA's 15th shuttle
flight since the 2003 loss of shuttle Columbia and its seven-astronaut crew.
Discovery's
mission is NASA's fourth of up to five shuttle missions planned for 2009. The
agency plans to fly six more flights after this one to complete space station construction
before retiring its three-orbiter fleet in 2010 or 2011. A White House panel is reviewing NASA's human spaceflight plans for President Barack Obama and is expected to file a report that includes several alternative options in upcoming weeks.
Discovery
and its seven-astronaut crew are due to land Sept. 10.
SPACE.com
is providing complete coverage of Discovery's STS-128 mission to the
International Space Station with Managing Editor Tariq Malik in New York. Click here for shuttle mission
updates and a link to NASA TV.
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