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Endeavour launches towards ISS |
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Written by Derek Kessler on
Tuesday, 11 March 2008
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 The space shuttle Endeavour launched early this morning towards the International Space Station, carrying aboard a new robotic arm and the first part of a new Japanese laboratory. Endeavour lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canveral, Florida, at 2:28 AM this morning. The shuttle, commanded by Dominic Gorie, is on a 16-day construction mission to the ISS.
In the cargo hold are two new attachements for the ISS. The first is the first of three segments for JAXA's Kibo laboartory, the second is a new two-armed multi-fingered Canadian Dextre robotic arm. The components will take no fewer than five spacewalks to install. The Endeavour crew will also swap out ESA astronaut Leopold Eyharts, who has been living on the ISS since Atlantis left last month, with US astronaut Garrett Reisman.
Once Endeavour arrives at the ISS, the Japanese Logistics Pressurized module, the first of the three Kibo components, will be installed with the assistance of JAXA astronaut Takao Doi. This will be the first time that representatives from four nations (Gorie for the NASA/USA, Doi for JAXA/Japan, Eyharts for ESA/France, and Yuri Malenchenko for Roskosmos/Russia).
Endeavour is on its way to the ISS and will conduct a number of scans of its sensitive heat tile belly. STS-123 is the second of six planned space shuttle launches. Endeavour is scheduled to arrive at the ISS at 11:27 PM on Wednesday and to return to Earth two weeks later.
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