Aug. 10, 2001

 Discovery enroute to station after 'extraordinary' launch

 By Steven Siceloff
 FLORIDA TODAY

 CAPE CANAVERAL - Seven million pounds of thrust in the form of white-hot
 fire and smoke from shuttle Discovery outshone the Florida sun as the
 spacecraft sped aloft Friday afternoon.

 Rolling onto its back and arching to the northeast seconds after liftoff,
 Discovery began chasing space station Alpha, the thunderous echo of the
 shuttle boosters setting off car alarms near the launch site. It will
 take the orbiter, traveling at 17,500 mph, two days to catch up to the
 station.

 The launch was viewed by thousands across the Space Coast, and caught the
 imagination of newspaper columnist Charles Krauthamer.

 "I'm just a layman and I've just witnessed something absolutely
 extraordinary," Krauthamer told the launch team shortly after liftoff.

 "My wife said these are the cathedrals of the 20th and 21st centuries.
 What you are doing will be remembered just as the cathedral-builders of
 the 15th century are remembered."


 The same kind of weather that scrubbed Thursday's attempt remained a
 concern throughout Friday afternoon. Storms edged close enough to Kennedy
 Space Center to force launch controllers move up the launch by five
 minutes to 5:10 p.m. to avoid interference.

 "It looked like it was going to be clean and green the whole time,"
 Launch Director Mike Leinbach said after the launch. A storm cloud
 forming 38 miles from the launch pad caused some worry, but it stayed out
 of the way. In the end, the weather stayed clear through the original
 launch time.

 Flight managers preferred to launch at 5:15 p.m. to save fuel, but the
 shuttle is expected to safely reach the station despite leaving early.

 With the countdown continuing, Leinbach approved the early launch
 attempt.

 "Okay, Doc," Leinbach said, referring to Discovery commander Scott
 Horowitz by his nickname. "Yesterday we had a good vehicle but the
 weather was bad, today we have both," Leinbach said.

 "Tell the Expedition 2 crew we're coming up," Horowitz radioed back.

 Packing up their belongings for their return to Earth in two weeks,
 Expedition 2 crewmembers cosmonaut Yury Usachev and astronauts Jim Voss
 and Susan Helms paused onboard Alpha to try to watch the launch
 first-hand from 200 miles above Earth. However, the shortened countdown
 cost the crew their chance to see the liftoff. The station was to move
 over Florida just three minutes after Discovery's launch, allowing the
 crew to see the plume, but the cloud evaporated by the time the orbiting
 cosmonaut and astronauts moved within sight.

 The crew also could not watch a live transmission of the launch because
 thunderstorms in Houston interfered with the signal. They will watch
 replays of the liftoff instead.

 Usachev, Voss and Helms will ride Discovery home when it returns to
 Kennedy Space Center Aug. 22.

 It was the eighth shuttle launch in 11 months for Kennedy Space Center,
 and the third launch this week from the Cape. An Air Force Titan 4
 carried a military satellite into space Monday and a Boeing Delta 2
 lofted a NASA probe Wednesday, both from Cape Canaveral Air Force
 Station.

 The liftoff marked the 106th mission of the shuttle program since 1981,
 and the 30th launch of Discovery.

 After docking to the station Sunday, the Discovery's crew will move the
 $150 million Leonardo cargo module onto the station to begin transferring
 thousands of pounds of experiments, equipment and supplies for the new
 Alpha crew.

 The flight showcases the different tack for upcoming shuttle missions
 that are meant to service the outpost and its crews rather than add more
 bulk to the 250,000-pound complex. Six of the last seven shuttle missions
 carried new segments.

 This mission largely resembles a March flight, the first mission to swap
 station crews.

 Tucked in on Discovery's lower deck for launch were Alpha's replacement
 crew of commander Frank Culbertson and Russian cosmonauts Vladimir
 Dezhurov and Mikhail Tyurin. The three make up the third crew for the
 station and are to live onboard until December.

 "We'll be going through a more laboratory-type, more research-type period
 (than previous missions) when we'll be conducting routine operations,"
 Culbertson said.

 When not working, the three men will have ample opportunity to visit
 remotely with their families.

 "It'll be a little better than going on a naval deployment when I had to
 rely on the old-style letters rather than the e-mail and video
 conferences we'll have now," Culbertson said.

 Commander Horowitz, pilot Rick Sturckow and astronauts Dan Barry and Pat
 Forrester will remain with Discovery throughout the mission.

 Barry and Forrester will conduct two spacewalks during the flight, the
 first coming seven days into the mission, and the next two days later.

 Unlike previous station missions, the crew has a couple of goals after
 leaving the station. Instead of just packing up the orbiter and turning
 it into a cargo plane, the group will spring a small satellite out of the
 payload bay before returning to Earth.

 The Simplesat is an experimental craft designed to test commercially
 available components in space. If it works in orbit, it could point the
 way for more universities to build their own spacecraft.