Space shuttle Endeavour STS MISSION 127 Launches from Kennedy Space Center JULY 15, 2009 @ 6:03 PM after 5 previous attemps

Lift off! Space shuttle Endeavour STS MISSION 127 launches from Kennedy Space Center July 15, 2009 @ 6:03 PM.












After 5 scrubs, space shuttle Endeavour has finally lifted off from launch pad 39a at Kennedy Space Center, starting its 16-day mission to the international space station.

After 3 weather related delays in the last week and 2 delays due to a hydrogen leak in June, it was starting to look like Endeavour would never get off the ground, but weather cooperated at the end.

Endeavour Reaches Orbit
Main engine cutoff is confirmed: space shuttle Endeavour has reached orbit. The shuttle lifted off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida as planned at 6:03 p.m. EDT and began its orbital chase of the International Space Station, orbiting 225 miles above Earth's surface.

The 16-day mission will feature five spacewalks and complete construction of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Kibo laboratory. Astronauts will attach a platform to the outside of the Japanese module that will allow experiments to be exposed to space.

The STS-127 crew members are Commander Mark Polansky, Pilot Doug Hurley and Mission Specialists Dave Wolf, Christopher Cassidy, Tom Marshburn, Tim Kopra and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Julie Payette. Kopra will join the space station crew and replace Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata. Wakata will return to Earth on Endeavour to conclude a three-month stay at the station.

Endeavour heads toward busy, complex construction job

Finding just enough blue sky to streak through on yet another stormy day, Endeavour blasted off at last Wednesday evening -- headed for one of the longest, most crowded and complex missions in space shuttle history.

The 6:03 p.m. launch – on NASA’s sixth attempt in 33 days -- appeared flawless at Kennedy Space Center and mission managers reported no immediate technical concerns as the seven astronauts headed out on what is largely an international space station construction and resupply mission. On schedule, the shuttle dropped the external tank 9 minutes into the flight and rocketed toward orbit.

The seven astronauts will dock Friday with the space station, which already has six crew members. That puts 13 people onboard for the first time. Endeavour’s 16 days in space will mark one of NASA’s longest space shuttle missions.

Who’s on board?
Mark Polansky, 53, from northern New Jersey, is commander of a shuttle for the second time. He is providing brief Internet updates from space to more than 30,000 people following him on Twitter.com, where he’s known as ASTRO_127. “Hope next tweet is from orbit. We’ll see,” he posted before boarding on Wednesday.

Marine Col. Doug Hurley, 42, will be the pilot, on his first shuttle mission. The rest of the crew includes shuttle veterans Dave Wolf, 52, of Indianapolis, on his fifth space flight; and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Julie Payette, 45, of Montreal, Quebec; and first-time astronauts Navy Cmdr. Chris Cassidy, 39, of Maine; Tom Marshburn, 48, a medical doctor from North Carolina; and Tim Kopra, 46, of Austin, Texas. Kopra will stay on the space station as its new flight engineer, replacing Koichi Wakata, 45, who will leave with Endeavor July 28.

What will they do?
NASA put so many people, days and tasks into the mission in part because time is running out. NASA plans just seven more shuttle flights.

The 13 people will work together onboard the space station for 13 days, making five space walks and maneuvering three robotic space arms for the first time.

Their biggest project: finishing the $1 billion, Japanese “Kibo” lab. Endeavour’s crew will deliver and install the final two sections, including a six-meter exposed space lab – essentially an outdoor balcony with an out-of-this-world view -- for open-space experiments and Earth and space observations.

“They have one of the most complex missions we have ever set out to do, in terms of the amount of spacewalking and the amount of robotics, and in terms of the choreography,” observed fellow NASA astronaut Cady Coleman.

Florida summer
Mission STS-127 originally was to launch June 13. Two attempts in June were scrubbed due to a hydrogen line leak. Stormy evening weather pestering Cape Canaveral all week forced NASA to scrub launches Saturday, Sunday and Monday. On Wednesday afternoon storms lifted just an hour or so before launch time.

NASA had no choice but to schedule evening times – always a weather gamble in Central Florida in the summer – to minimize the flight paths needed to chase and catch the orbiting space station.
Columbia holds the with seven delays before a 1995 liftoff.