CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The crew of the International Space Station got some welcome news before turning in Wednesday night: Visitors - and the station's first science lab - are on their way.
"We've got some good news for you: Atlantis and the STS-98 crew have taken up chase," NASA astronaut Dan Burbank told the station crew about 15 minutes after the shuttle's twilight launch from Kennedy Space Center.
"They're about 3,200 miles (5,120 kilometers) behind you right now, but that's not going to be the case for very long. They'll be hot on your heels shortly."
"Well, in the immortal words of John Paul Jones, a stern chase is a long chase," station commander Bill Shepherd, an aficionado of nautical lore replied, referring to the U.S. Revolutionary War hero who is considered the father of the American Navy.
But then again, Shepherd added, "When you're going Mach 25, it probably doesn't matter a whole lot what your target angle is."
With five astronauts strapped into its crew cabin, Atlantis thundered aloft at 6:13 p.m. EST (23:13 GMT) - or at the tail end of the station crew's workday.
The 18-story spaceship vaulted off its Kennedy Space Center launch pad, rolled onto its back and then rode a towering pillar of white smoke and flame through a sunset orange Florida sky.
A full moon, meanwhile, was rising in the east, creating a shimmering spectrum of color within the shuttle's umbilical-like exhaust plume."It looked like a rainbow to me. It changed colors three times, I think. And it continued to change colors as the plume faded away and started rolling at us," NASA launch director Mike Leinbach said. "It was very awe-inspiring. It really was."
The station crew thought so, too. Shepherd and his two Russian colleagues - Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev - watched slow-scan video of the launch that was beamed up to the outpost by ground controllers.
"Looks great," Shepherd reported.
Atlantis and its four-man, one-woman crew are due to dock at the station about noon EST (17:00 GMT) Saturday. Their prime job: Mounting and activating the $1.38 billion U.S. Destiny laboratory, which will be the scientific heart of the station.
The launch of the lab, meanwhile, marked the start of the home stretch for Shepherd and his crewmates, who now are scheduled to return to Earth around March 20 after a 130-day tour-of-duty on the station.
And it also represented a significant milestone for NASA's $60 billion International Space Station construction project, paving the way to the start-up of scientific research aboard the outpost in late March.
"It was a great day for the Kennedy Space Center, the shuttle program and especially the space station program," Leinbach said.
Added Shepherd: "It's been another great day in space history here."
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