After a one-day weather delay, the space shuttle Endeavour blasted off
in a fiery pre-dawn launch Feb. 8. With the space shuttle program due
to be discontinued at the end of the year, the launch was the last
night launch in the history of the shuttle program.
"What a beautiful launch we had this morning... the orbiter performed
extremely well," said Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for
Space Operations, during the post launch news conference. "This
is a great start to a very complicated mission."
Endeavour's primary mission will be the delivery of
the Tranquility node, the final module of the U.S. portion of the space
station. Tranquility will provide additional room for crew members and
many of the space station's life support and environmental control
systems. Attached to the node is a cupola, which houses a robotic
control station and has seven windows to provide a panoramic view of
Earth, celestial objects and visiting spacecraft.
Spanning about 22 feet in length and 14 feet in diameter, Tranquility's connection point on the station will be on the
Earth-facing side of the Unity node. The new component will provide an
additional docking point for space shuttles and other crew vehicles
visiting the station.
Docking with the ISS is set for Feb. 10
with three spacewalks planned to install the Tranquility node and then
cupola permanently to the space station. "This will be a
good example of international partnerships and cooperation between the
station crew and shuttle crew," said Mike Moses, shuttle launch integration manager.
Tranquility was built for NASA by Thales Alenia Space in Turin, Italy,
under contract to the ESA (European Space Agency). Although Tranquility
was actually delivered in May, NASA did not officially take
possession until Nov. 30.
After the node and
cupola are added, the orbiting laboratory will be about 90 percent
complete.
According to
NASA, the cupola's windows will be more than trim. As more cargo vehicles
begin frequenting the space station,
the station's robotic arm is going to be called into action to capture
some of them as they approach and guide them into their docking port.
Cupola will provide additional views for those operations.
Commander George Zamka, Pilot Terry Virts and Mission Specialists Kay
Hire, Stephen Robinson, Nicholas Patrick and Robert Behnken began their
13-day mission with an eight and a half minute dash to orbit to begin
the pursuit of the orbital outpost, lighting up the central Florida
coast as Endeavour arced to the northeast en route to space.
When Endeavour lifted off, the station was traveling at almost five miles a second about 212 miles over western Romania.
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