Atlantis launched, heads for International Space Station

*Atlantis* blasts off on mission STS-117.

Saturday, June 9, 2007

In the first space flight of 2007, Space Shuttle Atlantis blasted off on schedule yesterday, starting on an 11-day mission to the International Space Station.

Atlantis and its seven astronauts lifted off at 7:38 p.m. EDT (2338 GMT) from the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center, Florida. The launch pad, newly refurbished by NASA, had not been used since the launch of Space Shuttle Columbia, which ended in disaster on Feb. 1, 2003. Atlantis is scheduled to dock with the space station at around 1930 GMT tomorrow.

The goal for the Atlantis crew is to carry out the two missions that were left incomplete from the previous flight due to broken and jammed equipments. During the flight, the shuttle and its seven astronauts will deliver a new segment and will install energy-producing solar panels to the International Space Station. The payload is the heaviest ever flown to the space station, and includes a 45-foot (14-meter), 35,678-pound (16,183 kilogram) aluminium segment that will become part of the station's superstructure.

Trouble-plagued mission

The mission, STS-117 has been dogged by trouble. It was scheduled to launch in March, but a hailstorm in February damaged the orange external fuel tank, so the shuttle had to be rolled back into the Vehicle Assembly Building for repairs. After repairs, the tank had white specks visible in the orange insulation, and there was some concern over whether the insulation would hold. Falling foam insulation was blamed for the Columbia crash, in which all seven astronauts aboard were killed.

But yesterday's launch appeared to be flawless. "Give me more speckled tanks," the shuttle program manager, N. Wayne Hale Jr., was quoted as saying.

The delay in the launch of Atlantis also pushed back other missions.

NASA faced a scandal earlier in the year when one of its astronauts, Lisa Nowak, was fired after being charged in the attempted kidnapping of a fellow astronaut, William Oefelein, with whom she had been having an affair.

Sources

Wikipedia

Wikipedia has more about this subject:

STS-117

Irene Klotz, Reuters. "Space shuttle blasts off on construction mission" — Swiss Radio International, June 9, 2007
Mike Schneider, Associated Press. "Patched-up shuttle Atlantis blasts off" — Fox News, June 9, 2007
John Schwartz. "Shuttle Atlantis appears to have a flawless liftoff" — The New York Times, June 9, 2007

Share this:

This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.

Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.

Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.

Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.

Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.

This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.

Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.

Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.

Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.

Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.