U.S. Shuttle Launched to International Space Station

Jun 09, 07:45 PM

Current Headlines: MOSCOW. June 9 (Interfax-AVN) - The U.S. space shuttle Atlantis with seven astronauts onboard blasted off to the International Space Station on Saturday (Moscow time) from Cape Canaveral.

The launch of the shuttle was broadcast live on NASA's website. Atlantis is expected to reach the international space station at 11:35 p.m. Moscow time on June 10.

Atlantis commander Frederick Sturckow has already been on two shuttle missions. His current crew includes six other astronauts: Lee Archambault, James Reilly, Steve Swanson, John D. Olivas, Patrick Forrester and Clayton Anderson.

Anderson will replace Sunita Williams onboard the international space station, who has been in orbit since December 2006 and was supposed to return aboard the shuttle as early as the spring.

Initially, the launch of Atlantis was slated for March 15, but was delayed because of a hailstorm several days before the launch that damaged a fuel tank on the shuttle. The spacecraft stayed in the hangar until May, where NASA specialists had to repair its thermal protection system.

The launch of Atlantis will become the 118th space flight of a U.S. shuttle and the 21st flight to the international space station. Atlantis will deliver to the space station solar batteries for the right board of the station along with fixtures for them. The mission program involves three spacewalks on June 11, 13 and 15, during which the U.S. astronauts will install the solar batteries.

If the NASA astronauts fail to fulfill some of their tasks, the mission control center in Houston may schedule an additional spacewalk.

The current crew on the international space station includes Russian cosmonauts Fyodor Yurchikhin and Oleg Kotov and NASA astronaut Sunita Williams.

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