Although thick clouds and thunderstorms to the west of the space center kept meteorologists on their toes during the countdown's final hours, the severe weather did not drift close enough to cause further delays."OK, Taco, it looks like we've worked out all of our vehicle and ground problems over the last few days. Sorry we had to keep you here an additional six days," said Mike Leinbach, NASA's shuttle launch director at KSC. "But everything is coming together now and we wish you good luck."
"Thanks Mike and we do appreciate the really hard work," replied Endeavour commander Ken "Taco" Cockrell. "We'll do a good job for you."
Spewing its characteristic plume of fire and smoke as it roared over Florida's Space Coast, the shuttle climbed away from the planet's surface on a course that will allow Endeavour to catch up and dock with the ISS.
"This one feels good to get off the ground," said NASA shuttle launch director Mike Leinbach.
At the time of Endeavour's launch the station and its Expedition Four crew of Yuri Onufrienko, Dan Bursch and Carl Walz were cruising some 240 miles above the southern Indian Ocean, west of Perth, Australia.
Arriving nearly nine minutes after launch in a lower, faster orbit, it will take Endeavour two days to close the distance between the two vehicles. Docking is set for 12:18 p.m. EDT (1618 GMT) Friday, June 7.
News of Endeavour's launch was quickly radioed up to the station crew by former Expedition Three commander Frank Culbertson.
"The shuttle has launched. It's on its way," Culbertson said.
"Alright!" Bursch said.
"Thank you, Frank," Onufrienko added.
"I knew you would be happy to hear that," Culbertson said.
"Thanks boss, we'll see you soon," Walz said.
During the next eight days the combined STS-111, Expedition Five and Expedition Four crews -- which total 10 people -- will attempt to move through a jam-packed timeline.
"We've got one of those missions that has almost has too much in it to get done," Cockrell said before the mission.
Following the initial hatch opening will be the transfer of the two expedition crews.
Onufrienko, Bursch and Walz will give up their posts on the multinational complex to the Expedition Five crew of Valery Korzun, Peggy Whitson and Sergei Treschev, when the crews swap custom-made seat liners designed for the Soyuz lifeboat that is always docked to the station.
As a result of the several delays in Endeavour's launch, upon their scheduled return to Earth on June 17 Bursch and Walz will have spent 193 days in orbit -- a new American spaceflight endurance record. Shannon Lucid set the current 188-day record during her 1996 stay aboard the Russian space station Mir.
Another key feature of this 110th shuttle mission is the goal of temporarily connecting the Italian supply module, Leonardo, to the station's Unity node.
Inside the cylinder is nearly three tons of supplies and equipment that must be unloaded for the Expedition Five crew's use during the next five months.
The provisions include two new racks of science gear for the U.S. Destiny laboratory. One of those racks is called the Microgravity Science Glovebox and is provided by the European Space Agency to allow crew members to perform experiments inside a controlled volume of space.
Once Leonardo is emptied, the crew will dedicate a great deal of time and energy to filling the module with as much trash and unneeded equipment as can be loaded inside the Italian moving van for the return to Earth. The reason: the station is simply running out of closet space.
However, the most important events planned are the three spacewalks to be staged from the station's Quest airlock. Endeavour astronauts Franklin Chang-Diaz -- who is making his seventh spaceflight and is tying the record set in April by Jerry Ross -- and France's Philippe Perrin, will participate.
The spacewalks will include assembly and repair tasks mostly involving the station's Canadian robot arm. Work on the arm was added to the mission at what is considered the last minute by NASA standards.
The first two spacewalks will focus on tasks associated with connecting the Mobile Base System to its Mobile Transporter, while the third spacewalk will be dedicated to replacing a faulty wrist roll joint on the Canadarm2.
NASA managers decided on March 20 to replace the joint during this mission. This prompted a one-month delay in the flight so the hardware could be delivered to the Cape and loaded aboard Endeavour, while also giving the spacewalkers time to train for task.
However, the crew will first install a new base platform to which the Canadarm2 eventually is to attach itself to. The platform will be connected to the railroad car-like Mobile Transporter that is part of the S-Zero truss installed during the April shuttle mission.
The transporter is designed to move up and down rails alongside of the truss, and the new base platform allows the Canadarm2 to ride atop the hardware. This lets the mechanical appendage reach new areas of the station for future assembly operations.
NASA officials call this the first example of executing a "launch on demand" operation for the station -- something of a new operational trick for an agency that is known for planning their human spaceflights months and years in advance.
"When you stop and think about the complexity of this station and our ability to be able react to things like this, it's pretty incredible," said Dave King, a shuttle launch manager at KSC. "It's a real credit to the team to be able to put all that together in a very short time and to pull it off. This was not a simple, easy thing to go do."
Easy or not, its criticality was never in doubt. The future of the space station's continued growth is dependent on the health of this $600 million robotics system, NASA officials said.
"It's key to building station," said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's deputy station program manager. "Without the arm we could not continue to build the station, so the arm needs to be there and it need to be functioning."
Assuming all goes according to plan, Endeavour would undock with the station on June 15 and land back in Florida on June 17, touching down at the Shuttle Landing Facility at 11:49 a.m. EDT (1549 GMT).
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