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Successful Launch for Space Shuttle Atlantis

Posted on: Saturday, 9 September 2006, 09:50 CDT

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - After two frustrating weeks of delays, space shuttle Atlantis and its six astronauts blasted off Saturday on a mission to resume construction of the international space station for the first time since the Columbia disaster 3½ years ago.

The shuttle rose from its seaside launch pad through a partly cloudy at 11:15 a.m.

Cameras kept an eye on the spaceship as it streaked skyward for any signs of foam breaking off the big external fuel tank, the problem that doomed the Columbia.

NASA succeed on its fifth attempt to get Atlantis off the launch pad at 11:15 a.m. EDT. If the mission had scrubbed again, the space agency would have had to abandon for a few weeks its efforts to send the shuttle off on a construction mission at the space station.

NASA stopped Friday’s launch try only 45 minutes before its scheduled launch over a faulty fuel tank sensor — the same glitch that thwarted two previous missions. The launch delay cost NASA $616,000.

The shuttle’s external fuel tanks were filled as scheduled in about 3 hours Saturday morning, exhibiting no problems with any sensor. Weather was favorable, with only a 20 percent chance of storms interfering.

From the space station 220 miles above Earth, astronaut Jeff Williams inquired how launch preparations were going.

“Hopefully, we’ll have some visitors heading on their way to you before long,” Mission Control in Houston told him.

Atlantis, which was supposed to launch on its 11-day mission on Aug. 27, has been kept earthbound by a lightning strike to the launch pad, Tropical Storm Ernesto, a glitch with a 30-year-old motor in an electricity-generating fuel cell, and finally the fuel tank sensor error.

Originally the mission was scheduled for May 2003 but was first postponed by the 2003 Columbia accident.

Saturday was the last time NASA had to launch Atlantis before it had to go to the back of the line, behind a Russian Soyuz capsule that is slated for liftoff Sept. 18 on a flight to the space station. Both Atlantis and the Soyuz cannot be at the space station at the same time.

If Atlantis couldn't have lifted off on Saturday, it would have had to wait at least until late September — and even then, NASA will have to waive a post-Sept. 11 rule that says launches must be conducted in daylight so that the spaceship can be photographed for signs of damage.

Fuel sensor glitch

Friday’s launch was scrubbed because a sensor in the hydrogen fuel tank gave an abnormal reading during a test as the shuttle was being fueled.

Atlantis had been fueled with more than 500,000 gallons of supercold liquid hydrogen and oxygen, the six astronauts had donned their orange flightsuits and strapped themselves in, and the hatch to the shuttle had been closed, when NASA decided to postpone the launch with just 45 minutes to go until liftoff.

STS-115 crew photo. Credit: NASA

After problems in previous flights with the sensor, NASA created a new rule requiring a stand-down of 24 hours when one of the hydrogen tank’s four engine cutoff sensors doesn’t work properly; such a delay would allow engineers to gather more data on the problem.

“We had a lot of discussion. ... We follow the rules,” launch director Mike Leinbach radioed Atlantis’ crew, notifying them about the scrub. “Ought to feel good that we did that.”

“We understand. We concur 100 percent,” responded Atlantis’ commander, Brent Jett. “It’s the right thing to do.”

A large number of managers favored flying, but opposition to launching was led by NASA’s flight crew operations director.

Shuttle program manager Wayne Hale said top officials “decided staying with the plan ... was the prudent thing to do.”

Aboard Atlantis is one of the heaviest payloads ever carried into space — 17½ tons of girders that will be added to the half-built space station. It includes two solar arrays that will produce electricity for the orbiting outpost.

Atlantis’ crew members will make three spacewalks during the 11-day mission to install the $372 million addition.

Construction on the space station has been at a standstill ever since Columbia broke apart on its return home in 2003, killing its seven astronauts.

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On the Net:

www.nasa.gov

Source: AP

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