Space shuttle Endeavour launched from Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday in Cape Canaveral, Fla.
Astronauts in space and engineers on the ground will spend the next few days examining and analyzing the damage to see if it might pose a danger to the shuttle on re-entry.
The shuttle Columbia disintegrated in 2003, killing the seven astronauts on board, because of damage to its wing caused by falling foam during liftoff.
The countdown Wednesday proceeded without major glitches, and the weather finally cooperated, with the skies clear after showers early in the afternoon.
The launching had been delayed five times by hydrogen leaks, schedule conflicts, lightning strikes and rain. That was one short of NASA’s record for the number of delays. Two previous missions, in 1986 and 1995, were delayed six times before launching on the seventh try.
“Persistence pays off,” Peter Nickolenko, the launching director, said to crew members a few minutes before launching. “Good luck and Godspeed.”
A camera on the external tank captured about a dozen pieces of debris falling off the external tank. At least one, coming off about 1 minute 46 seconds after liftoff, hit the orbiter, leaving three marks on the heat-resistant tiles on the underside.
“We don’t consider those an issue for us,” William H. Gerstenmaier, the associate administrator for space operations, said at a news conference after the launching.
The white marks were probably just damage to the coating, not deep gouges, Mr. Gerstenmaier said, adding, “The issues will be in the back of the vehicle.”
The shuttle crew will use a laser scanner at the end of the robotic arm to examine the leading edges of the wings, and then as the orbiter approaches the International Space Station, it will do a flip to allow the station’s astronauts to get a good look at the underside.
The space shuttle Endeavour is scheduled for a 16-day construction mission to the International Space Station.
The mission, scheduled to last 16 days, includes five spacewalks dedicated to the construction of the space station. Engineers were also monitoring one of the Endeavour’s three fuel cells, which generate electricity by combining hydrogen and oxygen. Water is a byproduct, and one cell did not seem to be removing the water efficiently.
Tests “showed we’re plenty fine on margin,” said Michael P. Moses, the launching integration manager. “I don’t expect the fuel cell problem to be any kind of problem at all.”
The commander of the Endeavour mission is Mark L. Polansky, a retired Air Force pilot, and the pilot is Lt. Col. Douglas G. Hurley of the Marines. Also aboard are Cmdr. Christopher J. Cassidy of the Navy, Col. Timothy L. Kopra of the Army, Dr. Thomas H. Marshburn and Dr. David A. Wolf, all of NASA, and Julie Payette of the Canadian Space Agency.
Colonel Kopra will remain on the space station as a flight engineer while Koichi Wakata of the Japanese Space Agency, who has been in orbit since March, will return to Earth on the Endeavour.
During liftoff, this crew recorded a space exploration milestone. Before this flight, 498 people had been in space, beginning with Yuri Gagarin in 1961. Colonel Hurley, in the pilot’s seat, became No. 499, as the Endeavour passed through the 100-kilometer altitude, the arbitrary boundary of outer space. Because of his seating position, Commander Cassidy was the 500th. Dr. Marshburn and Colonel Kopra, both also first-time fliers, brought the total to 502.
The Endeavour brought up the final pieces to complete the Japanese laboratory on the space station. The “front porch” of the laboratory is to hold experimental samples exposed to the extremes of outer space.
Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated the year that the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated, killing seven astronauts. It was 2003, not 2001. The article also misstated the day of the week of the Endeavour's current launch. It was Wednesday, not Monday.
No comments:
Post a Comment