CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- In a blinding display of fire and smoke, shuttle Endeavour lit up the night sky over Florida's Space Coast Saturday, launching a fresh expedition crew and new truss segment safely on its way to the International Space Station (ISS).
Twelve days after an initial launch attempt was scrubbed due to a leaking oxygen line and a Friday attempt was halted by bad weather at emergency landing sites in Spain, liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center of NASA's fifth and final shuttle mission of the year came at 7:49:47 p.m. EST (00495.47 GMT Sunday).
Inside Endeavour: STS-113 mission commander Jim Wetherbee, a veteran of five previous shuttle flights; pilot Paul Lockhart, who flew Endeavour on its most recent mission in June; and spacewalkers Mike Lopez-Alegria and John Herrington, the only rookie on the shuttle crew.
Also riding within Endeavour's mid-deck was the Expedition Six crew who are about to spend the next four months or so living and working aboard the ISS.
The incoming station crew includes commander Ken Bowersox, a veteran of four spaceflights including two Hubble Space Telescope servicing missions; Russian cosmonaut Nikolai Budarin, who has made two trips into space and has served aboard the late space station Mir; and Don Pettit, a space rookie, who will be NASA's second station science officer.
Both Lockhart and Pettit were assigned to the mission this summer, replacing astronauts who had to be pulled because of medical reasons.Countdown take three
Endeavour's evening launch followed an intense 12-day exercise to recover from a Nov. 11 launch attempt that was scrubbed a few hours before launch because of a leaking oxygen flex hose line.
Repairing the line would turn out to be a relatively straight-forward operation. However, in the process of moving a work platform to access the area inside Endeavour's cargo bay, the platform brushed up hard against Endeavour's robot arm and damaged it.
That kicked off a whirlwind of activity within NASA and among its Canadian colleagues to determine if the robot Canadarm could still be used during Endeavour's mission.
Taking a ground test article in Toronto and damaging it to mimic the configuration of Endeavour's arm, Canadian engineers subjected the flawed arm to a battery of tests to ensure that the shuttle arm had not lost its structural integrity.
Even as the KSC launch team began Endeavour's countdown for a second time, NASA management was briefed on the results of the arm tests and was given the clear evidence they needed to approve flying the arm "as is."
At the same time, the shuttle engineering community checked to make sure the problem with the leaking oxygen flex hose line would not be repeated on Endeavour or any of the other orbiters.
Proving there was no fleet-wide generic problem, officials cleared the flex hose issue as well.
With those problems declared resolved late Wednesday, the countdown continued to a Friday launch attempt.
But bad weather at the two overseas emergency landing sites in Spain conspired to delay the mission another day.
The Spanish weather threatened again on Saturday but conditions in Zaragoza cleared in time to allow the liftoff.
"Looks like we've got a good vehicle and good weather tonight for you," launch director Mike Leinbach radioed the crew just before launch. "Have a great flight and I hope you have a good turkey dinner packed for Thanksgiving."
"Thank you very much," replied Wetherbee from Endeavour's flight deck. "From the bridge of Endeavour we're ready to set thundering sail."
Mission Endeavour
This STS-113 Endeavour mission is to be nearly a mirror image of Atlantis' STS-112 flight flown a month ago.
The primary goal: Continuing to build out the truss that will serve as a backbone for the station's electricity-generating solar wings and heat-dispelling radiator panels.
One half of the outpost's cooling system was installed as part of the S-One (S1) truss attached in October. The other half is part of the P-One (P1) truss now inside Endeavour's cargo bay in space.
Three spacewalks spread over five days beginning Tuesday will be required to install and outfit the P1 truss.
If the mission timeline holds to plan, Thanksgiving Day will feature the second of the spacewalks. Unfortunately, NASA officials say only enough turkey with all the trimmings for three was shipped up to the station weeks ago. The rest of the station occupants will have to make do with what they have.
Undocking would come on Monday, Dec. 2 and landing back in Florida would follow at 3:49 p.m. EST (2049 GMT) on Wednesday, Dec. 4 -- just six hours before a planned Atlas 2A launch from Cape Canaveral.
Still ahead
With the successful completion of this mission, the station will have the complete cooling system in place that will be required to handle the installation of additional solar arrays in 2003.
"We're really getting prepared on this flight for future activities that we're going to have to do next year," said NASA station program director Bill Gerstenmaier.
The second big goal of this mission is to deliver the Expedition Six crew to the station, and then return home the Expedition Five crew now serving a tour of duty aboard the multinational complex.
Commander Valery Korzun, flight engineer Sergei Treschev and science officer Peggy Whitson have been in space since June and say they are looking forward to the ride home on the same shuttle that carried them into space.
Part of the handover between crews will include moving about 1,500 pounds of equipment and supplies from Endeavour to the station.
"Coming up will be a fresh supply of consumables -- batteries, food, new payloads, new experiment samples. And coming home will be the expended versions of those same consumables," said Mark Kirasich, NASA's lead space station flight director for this mission.
More importantly, the two station crews will be given ample time for the experienced Expedition Five crew to share notes and tips with the newcomers.
"They will show them the layout of the station, the daily routine, the subtleties and nuances of the various systems and the hardware and software aboard the station, as well as the subtleties and nuances of living aboard the station and interacting with the two control centers both here and in Moscow," Kirasich said.
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