By KURT LOFT
The Tampa Tribune

CAPE CANAVERAL Mother Nature must be a fan of the U.S. space program, judging from her benevolence in pushing aside bad weather long enough for seven astronauts to roar into orbit.

An approaching storm front threatened Thursday’s 2:45 p.m. liftoff, and at one point NASA gave a dismal 30 percent chance of getting shuttle Atlantis off the pad. But Florida’s weather proved delightfully fickle for the launch team, surprising even the stone-faced Air Force meteorologists at Kennedy Space Center.

Atlantis shot off the pad in a blaze of fire and smoke, shedding its twin solid boosters 2 minutes later and traveling more than 5 miles a second before releasing its orange fuel tank over the Indian Ocean.

“A smooth and uneventful ascent,” Rod Navias, the voice of Mission Control in Houston, said with typical agency understatement.

The crew will spend 11 days adding another segment to the world’s most ambitious orbiting construction project, the $100 billion International Space Station. The goal: Install a 10-ton beer can to the side of the station. Built by the European Space Agency, the Columbus module is a high-tech, $2 billion contraption that marks a major part of the “international” aspect of the station.

Columbus is the cornerstone of Europe’s involvement, with more than 500 scientists committed to remote science projects conducted from the Columbus control center outside of Munich, Germany.

“So in European terms, this is a pretty big deal,” said Clare Mattok, an ESA spokeswoman.

If all goes according to plan, German astronaut Hans Schlegel will do three space walks to help install and power up the laboratory. Once hooked up, the module will make the station more than 60 percent complete. NASA must finish assembling the station before retiring its shuttles in 2010.

Thursday’s countdown clicked away without any technical glitches, including suspect engine cutoff sensors, or ECOs, that monitor the flow of fuel from the shuttle’s 500,000-gallon tank. Faulty sensors halted the first launch attempt in December, and engineers spent much of the last two months troubleshooting the problem.

The mission marked the anniversary seven years ago to the day when a shuttle carried to the station the first major U.S. component, a living quarters called Destiny. The latest installment will be followed next month by Kibo, a massive Japanese laboratory, further extending the international partnership in orbit.

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

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