Shuttle Soars With Gear for Space Station

The space shuttle Discovery rocketed away Thursday on a mission to the international space station, carrying two tons of supplies intended to help turn the outpost into a home away from home for its first full-time crew.

With commander Kent Rominger and pilot Rick Husband at the controls, Discovery blasted off on time at 6:50 a.m. EDT to kick off NASA’s first shuttle flight in nearly six months.

Discovery’s ascent was virtually flawless. Shortly after reaching orbit, Rominger and Husband carried out three critical rocket firings to fine-tune the shuttle’s approach late Thursday evening to the partially built space station.

Steadily closing in for a docking at 12:21 a.m. Saturday, the Discovery astronauts plan to spend five days attached to the station, moving 3,600 pounds of fresh water, laptop computers, clothing, repair equipment and other gear from the shuttle into the lab.

An additional 700 pounds of equipment, including a U.S.-built crane and parts of a Russian cargo boom that will be used by future assembly crews, will be mounted on the station’s hull during a spacewalk Saturday night by astronauts Tamara Jernigan and Daniel Barry.

Along with repairing a balky radio telemetry system in the U.S. Unity module, the astronauts also plan to replace 18 suspect battery components in the Russian Zarya module to improve operation of the station’s electrical system.