Shuttle Discovery launches safely

Shuttle Discovery launches safely

04 July 2006 22:33
The shuttle Discovery has successfully launched with seven astronauts onboard despite the discovery of a crack after a piece of insulating foam apparently fell off the external fuel tank.

The shuttle jettisoned its two rocket boosters two minutes into the flight and split from the fuel tank as it reached orbit some nine minutes after take-off.

The launch of Discovery was postponed twice over the weekend due to bad weather.

On Sky News at 11pm last night, they had NASA video footage showing 3 small pieces of debris break away. The funny thing was, it was after the crucial phase of the flight, with the 2 SRB's, and with most aerodynamic noise to cause breakaway. The pieces recorded were at almost 3 and 5 minutes into the flight.

I watched the launch on nasa tv (sky news carried the feed on sky interactive). I saw those pieces breaking off as they happened. I even said it to my wife at the time. The three minute fragment was actually two small pieces. I saw them whizz past the orbiter. It was fairly obvious to me that they were reasonably small and also that they did not in fact hit the orbiter.

I had a look at heavens above and the ISS is visible almost every night in August from Ireland !
Anyone know when will the shuttle be leaving the ISS ??

I had a look at heavens above and the ISS is visible almost every night in August from Ireland !
Anyone know when will the shuttle be leaving the ISS ??

Not sure but I doubt it will be there till August ... that's about 3 weeks away

I had a look at heavens above and the ISS is visible almost every night in August from Ireland !
Anyone know when will the shuttle be leaving the ISS ??

Not sure but I doubt it will be there till August ... that's about 3 weeks away

It's only scheduled to be a 12 day mission.