U.S. space shuttle Discovery lifts off on mission to int'l space station

WASHINGTON, April 5, 2010 (Xinhua) --

Editor: Han Jingjing

U.S. space shuttle Discovery with seven astronauts on board lifts off on Monday morning from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, on a 13-day construction mission to the International Space Station (ISS).

According to NASA TV, the shuttle blasted off at 6:21 a.m. EDT (1021 GMT) on a tower of flame that turned the dark Florida sky as bright as day.

"It's time for you to rise to orbit. Good luck and Godspeed," launch director Pete Nickolenko told the astronauts before liftoff.

"Let's do it!" replied shuttle commander Alan Poindexter.

"It's a great day. We've seen unbelievable great launch," NASA's Associate Administrator for Space Operation Bill Gerstenmaier told a press conference after the launch.

The liftoff set a record for the most women in space at the same time. Three women are aboard Discovery, and another already is at the space station, making for an unprecedented foursome. It also is the first shuttle mission with three female crew members.

American Tracy Caldwell Dyson arrived at the orbiting space station on Sunday aboard a Soyuz spacecraft with two Russian cosmonauts.

Joining Dyson from Discovery were mission specialists Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger, a former high school science teacher; Stephanie Wilson, a veteran of two shuttle missions; and Naoko Yamazaki, an astronaut with the Japanese space agency since 1996.

Discovery's flight will deliver eight tons of supplies and equipment to the ISS, including spare bunks for the occupants of the space station, a large tank of ammonia coolant and seven racks filled with science experiments. Discovery is also carrying an exercise machine designed to study the effects of micro-gravity on the body's musculoskeletal system.

The supplies, racks and other gear are packed into a pressurized Italian-built module named Leonardo Multi-Purpose Logistics Module, carried in the shuttle's cargo bay.

Leonardo serves as basically a moving van for the space station, allowing the shuttle to, first of all, deliver shipments of equipment and supplies larger than any other vehicle could accommodate, and, second, to return science experiments, unneeded hardware and trash to the ground -- all other cargo transfer vehicles burn up in the Earth's atmosphere.

The mission has three planned spacewalks, with work to include replacing an ammonia tank assembly, retrieving a Japanese experiment from the station's exterior, and switching out a rate gyro assembly on the S0 segment of the station's truss structure.

The shuttle is expected to arrive at the orbiting outpost Wednesday.

Discovery's mission is among the last flights to the ISS. Only three shuttle missions are planned after this flights. NASA plans to retire its entire fleet by September 2010.

The ISS, a 100-billion U.S. dollar project begun in 1998 with the participation of 16 countries, is financed mainly by the United States.

In presenting his 2011 budget proposal in February this year, U.S. President Barack Obama announced that the space station will be maintained until at least 2020.

The Obama administration wants to cancel the shuttle's follow-on program, called Constellation, which aimed to return U.S. astronauts to the moon in 2020. Instead, Obama is pushing a technology development initiative aimed at an eventual international mission to Mars.

Obama is scheduled to host a conference on space at or near the Kennedy Space Center on April 15 to elaborate on his post-shuttle plans.

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