Anderson, Atlantis blast into space
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By MIKE SCHNEIDER / Associated Press
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Atlantis’ external fuel tank looked like a beat-up old car that had bodywork done in someone’s garage, but it still helped launch the first space shuttle mission of 2007.
Its big orange fuel tank covered with white blotches where the foam insulation had been repaired, the spaceship rose from its seaside launch pad with a roar and climbed into a clear and still-brightly lit sky at 6:38 p.m. CDT, setting a course for the international space station.
“See you in a couple weeks,’’ Atlantis commander Rick Sturckow said shortly before lifting off.
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LIFTOFF: 6:38 p.m. CDT
Through Thursday night, the countdown for space shuttle Atlantis was continuing without a hitch, with even the weather cooperating. If all goes as planned, Atlantis will lift off early this evening, bound for the International Space Station with Nebraska native Clayton Anderson aboard. The first Nebraska-born astronaut, Anderson will serve as a flight engineer and NASA science officer on the shuttle mission and will remain on the International Space Station for about five months.
Read about Anderson’s journey from his hometown of Ashland to Cape Canaveral.
Knight in shining armor
Initially, Anderson’s stay aboard the space station was going to begin later and end sooner.
NASA’s plans changed in April and put Atlantis back on its original June 8 liftoff date and gave Anderson an earlier departure date so astronaut Sunita Williams could come home. Otherwise, Williams, who flew to the space station in December, would have had to stay until August.
“I told her that I was her knight in shining armor come to rescue her from the throes of the space station,” Anderson told Space.com for a Thursday story.
He told Space.com he looks forward to a series of spacewalks and space station construction tasks during his flight. But he hopes to lend a hand to Atlantis’ shuttle crew, too.
“They are six men who are totally trained for their mission without me,” Anderson said of the STS-117 astronauts. “Now they’ve added me so I can become, I hope, a utility infielder, and help them out wherever I’m needed.”
All in the family
Anderson told Space.com his shuttle flight switch meant some late training, as well as some scrambling for his family and friends who had planned to attend a later launch. But his wife, Susan, is well-acquainted with such changes, he said.
“Sue is very adapted,” said Anderson. “She worked in the shuttle-Mir station program and she is very familiar with launch slips and delays, and the requisite risk that goes with all this, so she’ll be able to deal with it pretty well.”
His wife and their son Cole and daughter Sutton Marie, along with a large contingent of other family members and friends from Ashland and elsewhere, will be at Cape Canaveral for the liftoff.
“The neatest thing for me is the fact that everyone that’s here that I know and worked with and played with and interacted with during all those 20-some years to this point can all share in this journey because they’re a part of me,” Anderson told Space.com. “All those people will fly with me and I think that is probably one of the most rewarding aspects of this mission.”
The countdown was nearly flawless, but it appeared that something fell from the tank more than two minutes into the ascent, just a few seconds after the solid rocket boosters separated from Atlantis.
Shuttle program manager Wayne Hale said that foam did fall off the tank, as expected, but that it happened too late in the ascent to be a problem. A preliminary analysis showed it didn’t strike the shuttle, Hale said.
“The tank performed in a magnificent way, despite having several thousands of repairs to it,’’ Hale said.
The shuttle smoothly settled into orbit around the Earth.
Minutes after launch, Atlantis’ contrails formed an intricate and unusual knot in the Florida sky, framed by the colors of sunset and with the bright light of Venus peeking through.
Veteran shuttle watchers oohed and aahed at the second sky show of the night.
During the 11-day flight, Atlantis’ astronauts will deliver a new segment and a pair of solar panels to the orbiting outpost. They will also swap out a member of the space station’s crew.
“It took us a while to get to this point, but the ship is in great shape,’’ launch director Mike Leinbach said just before liftoff.
The mission had been delayed for three months after a freak storm at the launch pad hurled golf-ball-size hail at Atlantis’ 154-foot fuel tank, putting thousands of pockmarks in its vital insulating foam and one of the orbiter’s wings.
Months of repairs resulted in white spots blotching its pencil-shaped tank.
“We have done extensive tests and analysis,’’ said LeRoy Cain, launch integration manager.
Atlantis’ crew is led by commander Rick Sturckow. The other members are pilot Lee Archambault and mission specialists Patrick Forrester, Steven Swanson, Danny Olivas, James Reilly and Clayton Anderson. It is the first all-male crew at launch since 2002.
Anderson, a Nebraska native, will replace astronaut Sunita Williams as the U.S. representative aboard the space station, and Williams will return to Earth aboard Atlantis. She has spent the past six months in orbit.
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Proud Nebraska wrote on June 8, 2007 9:05 am:
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