Houston, December 10
After years in training and two launch countdowns, Sunita Williams today became the second woman of Indian origin after Kalpana Chawla to reach the orbit along with six other astronauts on board space shuttle Discovery that blasted off into the night sky on a 12-day repair mission to the International Space Station.
Despite doubts about the take-off due to poor weather forecast and a two-hour delay before tanking operations, Discovery and its crew of seven lifted off from Kennedy Space Center here at 7:17 am (IST).
It was an amazing sight as Discovery’s 33rd flight steadily thundered into the darkness, lightening up the starless wintry night sky with a bright streak.
The liftoff from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center was the first in darkness for a shuttle in four years. The crew members will get down to the business of completing the most challenging and complex ISS mission to date.
The mission will mark the third shuttle flight this year, the most the space agency has attempted
since the fatal 2003 Columbia accident. The launch of Discovery appeared to be an exceptionally clean space shot, NASA mission managers said.“It all just came together perfectly,” NASA launch director Mike Leinbach said in a post-launch briefing.
Formerly a navy test pilot, Sunita (41) is a flight engineer on the mission and will stay behind at the ISS for a six-month period replacing German astronaut Thomas Reiter of the European Space Agency.
Discovery’s two rocket boosters successfully separated from the orbiter two minutes after liftoff from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, and the shuttle later also shed its massive external fuel tank.
After a 48-hour delay, the shuttle was cleared for launch as weather conditions improved in the afternoon.
Besides Sunita, the crew includes mission commander Mark Polansky, pilot William Oefelein, mission specialists Joan Higginbotham; Nicholas Patrick; lead spacewalker Bob Curbeam; and the European Space Agency’s Christer Fuglesang, who will become the first Swede in space.
The crew, of which five have never flow in a space shuttle before, is on a complex mission during which they will give the ISS a new electricity system.
Sunita is expected to take a spacewalk with her colleague Curbeam to help rewire the ISS space lab and also operate the space station’s robotic arm, among other tasks.
NASA has described the construction mission as the most complex to date, with three space walks to rewire the station and install the new truss segment. The solar arrays installed in September will be activated during the 12-day Discovery mission.
Unlike Chawla, who was born at Karnal in Haryana, Sunita was born and brought up in the US. Born in Ohio to Deepak N Pandya, a physician who migrated to the USA and Ursaline B Pandya, she grew up and went to school in Massachusetts.
She has a B.S. (Physical Science)n degree from the US Naval Academy, and a M.S. in Engineering Management from the Florida Institute of Technology.
Trained to remain aboard the space station until July, Williams will also join space station commander Mike Lopez-Alegria for three spacewalks early next year.
The current mission is among 14 NASA has planned to finish the ISS over the next four years.
NASA officials are reportedly happy at the launch as they wanted the shuttle back on the earth before the New Year Day because its computers are not designed to change from 365th day of the old year to first day of the New Year while in the flight. The space agency, it said, has figured out a solution but managers are reluctant to try it.
As of now, the shuttle is scheduled to land at Kennedy Space Center on December 21 but has an option of delaying landing by a couple of days.
— PTI
