'Atlantis' takes flight despite lengthy delay

Thursday's launch is part of an effort to fly the space shuttles a dozen times by 2010.

By CURTIS KRUEGER, Times Staff Writer
Published February 8, 2008

ADVERTISEMENT [AP photo] Space shuttle Atlantis lifts off from the Kennedy Space Center Thursday. Atlantis' seven-member crew is on an 11-day mission to deliver Columbus, a laboratory module built by the European Space Agency, to the international space station.

CAPE CANAVERAL - With the launch of Atlantis on Thursday, NASA kicked off what it hopes will be its busiest schedule in years - three space shuttle flights in three months, and possibly three more this year.

"It's a great beginning for us, it's a challenging mission," said NASA launch official LeRoy Cain.

In spite of sporadic cloudy weather and the nagging fuel gauge problems that delayed the flight for two months, Atlantis launched without a problem.

The shuttle tore through a cloud and blasted into the blue sky, staying visible to the naked eye for three minutes, well after the 15-story solid rocket boosters separated more than 40 miles above Earth.

It carried the European Space Agency's $2-billion laboratory named Columbus, which astronauts will attach to the international space station.

"This is a fantastic day for ESA, a fantastic day for Europe," said the agency's director general, Jean-Jacques Dordain.

European space officials gathered in the Kennedy Space Center press building and celebrated with chocolates and glasses of a nonalcoholic bubbly.

"I think Columbus has discovered a new world," Dordain said later.

Thursday's launch puts NASA a step closer to its goal of flying space shuttles a final dozen times by 2010, in the process completing the international space station and repairing the Hubble Space Telescope.

In less than three years, NASA hopes to end the space shuttle era and begin the transition to a new American spacecraft that will take astronauts to the moon and Mars.

Engineers already are designing the new spaceship, called Orion, although there is no guarantee the next president will actually follow through with plans to build it.

Atlantis is now orbiting with five Americans and French and German astronauts. They will attach the Columbus lab to the international space station as it orbits more than 200 miles above Earth.

The lab is the main European contribution to science aboard the space station, a multinational orbiting creation that has now housed humans for six years continuously.

Although six space shuttle missions in a given year is ambitious, NASA doesn't need to complete all six to remain on schedule with its plans to finish building the space station, said NASA associate administrator Bill Gerstenmaier. Even with three successful missions the agency could stay on schedule, he said.

The current space shuttle mission will be led by two Navy pilots: commander Steve Frick, who will be making his second trip into space; and pilot Alan Poindexter, making his first.

Another first-time astronaut on board is Leland Melvin, a scientist who also was an 11th-round pick for the Detroit Lions in the 1986 NFL draft.

Curtis Krueger can be reached at ckrueger@sptimes.com or 727 893-8232.

[Last modified February 7, 2008, 23:13:12]