By KURT LOFT
The Tampa Tribune

CAPE CANAVERAL - A cosmic partnership took another leap as Endeavour roared skyward early Tuesday on the 25th shuttle mission to the International Space Station.

The seven-man crew blasted off at 2:28 a.m., lighting up the night like magnificent Roman candle. Endeavour left the pad at Kennedy Space Center at the opening of a 10-minute window designed to put the spaceship on a precise trajectory behind the station 225 miles above the Earth.

With the astronauts safely in orbit and preparing for 16 days of work, NASA applauded Japan as the final member on the $100 billion station project, joining the United States, Russia, Canada and Europe. The consortium of countries is working to finish the station by the end of 2010.

The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency will make a big impression with Kibo, the largest habitable part of the station and that country’s first manned facility in space. Kibo is so big, in fact, it requires two more shuttle missions to haul up all its parts.

Engineers have spent 20 years designing and building the multi-billion dollar Kibo – which means “hope” - a massive microgravity laboratory with pressurized quarters for people and exposed areas to test the effects of radiation. The complexity of the project, coupled with the constraints of getting into orbit, added years to the venture, said Asaka Hagiwara, a spokeswoman with the Japanese space agency.

“Our satellite projects can take 10 years,” she said. “This has taken longer because it has depended on all the problems that NASA has had.”

Takao Doi, a 53-year-old mission specialist and astronaut with the Japanese space agency, will help christen Kibo after the shuttle docks with the station Wednesday. Doi brings plenty of experience, having logged 376 hours in orbit on a 1997 shuttle mission.

Also on board Endeavour is a contraption called Dextre, which resembles a multi-armed robot. Equipped with claws, lights, video cameras and power tools, the Canadian-made machine will be used for exterior maintenance of the station, replacing jobs that require difficult spacewalks by astronauts.

The next shuttle mission to the station will be in April, followed by an August launch to service the Hubble Space Telescope, then two more station assembly missions later in the year.

Reporter Kurt Loft can be reached at kloft@tampatrib.com or (813) 259-7570.