Space Shuttle Lights Up Night Sky
Flashes of flame from space shuttle Discovery lit up the darkened sky as the spacecraft blazed off the launch pad for the first nighttime liftoff in four years.
The shuttle's seven astronauts blasted off Saturday night on a mission to rewire the international space station, one leg of a three-year race to finish construction on the orbiting outpost before shuttles are retired in 2010.
The illumination from the shuttle turned night into day for spectators at the Kennedy Space Center.
"Discovery's huge solid-fuel booster flashed to life at 8:47:35 p.m., instantly pushing the fuel-laden 4.5-million-pound spacecraft skyward atop 500-foot tongues of sky-lighting fire," reports CBS News space consultant Bill Harwood. "Accelerating through 140 mph in just 10 seconds — straight up — Discovery wheeled about its long axis and arced away over the Atlantic Ocean, blazing through the dark sky on a trajectory up the East Coast of the United States."
NASA officials were glad to get the shuttle off their ground since they wanted it back on Earth by the new year.
Shuttle computers are not designed to make the change from the 365th day of the old year to the first day of the new year while in flight. The space agency has figured out a solution for the New Year's Day problem, but managers are reluctant to try it.
The launch was the first at night since Endeavour's flight in November 2002 and only the 29th in darkness of NASA's 117 total shuttle launches.
NASA had required daylight launches for three flights after the Columbia accident in 2003 so that clear images could be taken of the external fuel tank. Foam breaking off the tank and striking Columbia's wing at liftoff led to the disaster that killed seven astronauts.