Six astronauts will start building a small city in space on Saturday, having ridden into orbit aboard the shuttle Endeavour early Friday.
“Let’s go do this,” said an eager shuttle commander Robert Cabana at launch time.
“Amen,” launch control replied.
The 3:36 a.m. EST liftoff of the first International Space Station construction crew was more than a year overdue.
The 12-day mission had been postponed repeatedly because of delays in completing the station’s Russian-made third component, a still-unfinished service module that will provide propulsion and room for a crew.
Saturday afternoon’s task is relatively simple compared with what lies ahead. Using Endeavour’s 50-foot-long robot arm, the crew must lift a 36-foot-long module called Unity from the cargo bay and connect it to a tunnel-like docking port nearby.
Success would set the stage for a more complicated job Sunday, when the crew is to grab a truck-size Russian control module already in orbit and stack it atop Unity and the docking port.
All of this while flying 240 miles above Earth at more than 17,000 m.p.h.
“This is going to be tough, and we’re going to have problems,” NASA Administrator Dan Goldin said. “But we have to go where . . . we want to be.”
Where NASA and its 15 international partners want to be five years from now is living aboard a $50 billion laboratory complex in space. The 500-ton outpost eventually will cover an area the size of two football fields.
Endeavour’s mission is the critical first step in one of the biggest engineering challenges in history.
The shuttle was a day late in taking that step. A low pressure reading on one of the shuttle’s three hydraulic systems triggered an alarm in Endeavour’s cockpit during the final moments of the countdown Thursday. Mission managers were unable to resume the count in time to make the short launch window needed for Endeavour to chase down the orbiting Russian control module.
For the first time in three years, NASA had to scrub a shuttle launch with the crew already on board.
But Friday morning was a different story.
Commander Cabana, pilot Rick Sturckow and mission specialists Jerry Ross, Nancy Currie, Jim Newman and Sergei Krikalov–a Russian cosmonaut making his second shuttle flight–emerged from Kennedy Space Center’s Operations and Checkout Building just before midnight.
A few hours later, with NASA’s Goldin, Secretary of State Madeline Albright and a host of international dignitaries looking on, Endeavour lit up the Central Florida sky and thundered into orbit through partly cloudy skies.
“In foreign policy, we have our version of launches, and we don’t get it right the second time often,” Albright told those in the Kennedy Space Center firing room after liftoff. “All of my admiration to you. Amazing job.”
Goldin acknowledged that it will be difficult building the space station with the Russians, who are experiencing a severe cash crunch. Already, NASA has funneled $60 million to the Russians to complete some crucial equipment. Millions more will almost certainly be needed.
Russia’s problems aside, Goldin warned of “some white-knuckled times” in the years ahead. Some of the problems, in fact, will eclipse the fire and collision aboard Mir last year, he said.
“Remember, these astronauts are moving 20,000- and 40,000-pound masses. They’re not going to be able to pretrain for everything,” he said. “Problems could occur. Equipment could break. Life-support systems could go down.”
Endeavour’s crew, meanwhile, went to sleep five hours after liftoff and didn’t begin their second day in space until about 4:30 p.m. Friday, waking to the strains of “Get Ready,” a 1966 hit by the Temptations.
It was an appropriate selection. Most of Friday evening was spent getting Endeavour ready for the critical chores ahead.
The shuttle continued to close on the Russian-built Zarya module, a 21-ton piece of the station that was launched Nov. 20 from Central Asia atop a Russian rocket.
Endeavour is expected to catch Zarya on Sunday. On Saturday, the astronauts will prepare Unity–a 13-ton, six-sided hub that future U.S.-made modules will connect to–for Sunday’s rendezvous.
At about 5 p.m. Saturday, mission specialist Currie will use Endeavour’s robot arm to lift Unity from its berth in the cargo bay and position it over the nearby docking ring. In some places there is only a few inches of clearance.
Operating a joystick and a knob on Endeavour’s flight deck, Currie will move Unity to within 4 inches of the docking port, then command the robot arm to go limp. Cabana will fire Endeavour’s thrusters, propelling the shuttle upward and latching Unity to the docking ring.
If all goes well, Currie will attempt a similar, but tougher, feat on Sunday.
As Cabana moves Endeavour near Zarya, Currie will reach out and snare the module with the robot arm, then stack it on Unity in the same way Unity was attached to the docking ring.
But with Zarya there’s a catch: Currie’s view will be obscured by Unity, so she’ll perform the entire task relying only on camera views.
Once the elements are connected, Ross and Newman will make three six-hour spacewalks over six days, installing power and data cables on the modules and performing other tasks needed to get the station ready for operation.
“I’m going to breathe a great sigh of relief once Zarya is safely connected to Unity,” Cabana said. “It’s definitely the most complex payload I’ve ever dealt with.”
