Camera lifts launch to new level

CAPE CANAVERAL -- So seemingly routine have flights of the space shuttle become that most of the prelaunch attention given to Monday's mission went to a small camera attached to the fuel tank, and the nifty view of the ground it would record during launch.

The shuttle Atlantis cooperated with a ho-hum on-time and incident-free liftoff Monday. And, as promised, the new video camera showed the coastline and the brilliant blue ocean receding fast in the distance as the spaceship climbed.

Atlantis launched at 3:46 p.m. under tight security, carrying six astronauts and a 14-ton girder that will become another piece of the international space station. The Air Force chased six stray planes in the hours before liftoff.

It was the first shuttle launch since June.

During their week at the space station, Atlantis' astronauts will conduct three spacewalks to hook up the $390-million girder.

The space station and its three occupants were soaring 240 miles above the Pacific, west of the Galapagos Islands, when Atlantis took off. The shuttle should reach the orbiting outpost Wednesday with bags of apples, oranges, grapefruit, garlic, onions, hot sauce and a pecan pie.

Astronaut Peggy Whitson, the lone American aboard the space station, is tired of eating out of cans after four months in orbit and put in an order for fresh and spicy food. She has one month remaining in her mission.

The launch also marked the debut of what NASA called "shuttlecam," a color video camera mounted near the top of the external fuel tank.

Mission Control told the crew that the first two minutes of footage were "nothing short of spectacular" as the shuttle soared over the Atlantic. But the camera picked up debris when the rocket boosters dropped away after about two minutes, and the rest of the pictures were foggy. The shuttlecam showed the billowing plume of rocket exhaust moments after liftoff, and then the coastline and foamy white waves, and then the cape. TV viewers could make out Atlantis separating from its empty fuel tank eight minutes into the flight.

"It's the next best thing to actually being on board, and in some ways you get a view you never had, even if you are on board," said Jim Halsell, a shuttle manager and former shuttle commander.

-- Staff writer David Ballingrud contributed to this report.

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