NASA’s Space Shuttle Discovery successfully launched this morning from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA. The return to flight comes 2 ½ years after the Space Shuttle disaster claimed the lives of seven astronauts returning to Earth after a successful mission.

The liftoff occurred at 10:39 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time. The return to flight has been an arduous process of improving safety and inspecting equipment in the aftermath of the Columbia disaster. Experts believe the accident was caused by debris that damaged the space shuttle during launch. For this current launch, a plethora of surveillance equipment watched for similar incidents. The measures detected debris falling from Discovery but it does not appear that any damage occurred to the space shuttle’s skin. Video and images of the launch will be closely reviewed for the next several days and the crew will continue their own inspection throughout their mission.

The Discovery STS-114 crew includes:

• Commander Eileen Collins
• Pilot James Kelly
• Mission Specialist Charles Camarda
• Mission Specialist Wendy Lawrence
• Mission Specialist Soichi Noguchi
• Mission Specialist Steve Robinson
• Mission Specialist Andy Thomas

Their mission is to test new safety techniques developed over the past few years and to deliver supplies to the International Space Station (ISS). The crew will also undertake spacewalks to deploy new ISS modules.

The space shuttles were developed in the 1970s. NASA plans to retire the remaining fleet around 2010 while a next-generation Crew Exploration Vehicle is developed. NASA hopes to return humans to the moon by 2020 after President Bush outlined new space exploration goals last year focused on the Moon and Mars.

More Information

• NASA Returns to Flight
• STS-114 Crew

Pack a pilot and enough weight and volume to equal two passengers into a privately-funded spacecraft, launch and reach a height of 100 kilometers, return safely and do it again in two weeks with the same ship - win US$10,000,000.

The Ansari XPrize organization announced on Tuesday that on Wednesday, September 29, 2004 Burt Rutan, Paul Allen and their American Mojave Aerospace Ventures, LLC Team will make their attempt at the prize. The launches are open to the public, with parking passes available through the XPrize website.

On August 5, 2004 the competing Canadian da Vinci Project Team will publicly unveil their Wild Fire spacecraft. The da Vinci Project Team also plans to make an attempt for the prize sometime this fall. While Burt Rutan’s team uses an airplane to take the spacecraft to high altitudes before separation and launch, the da Vinci Project Team plans to use an unmanned helium balloon to take their spacecraft up.

SpaceShipOne and its pilot (now astronaut) Mike Melvill succeeded in reaching space and have returned to Earth. This goes into the record books as the first piloted private mission into space. Burt Rutan, chief of Scaled Composites is already planning to send a pilot into Earth orbit, after they attempt to win the Ansari X-Prize sometime by the end of this year.

CNN and other news outlets are now (around 7:00 a.m. Pacific Standard Time) showing live the flight of Scaled Composites’ White Knight and SpaceShipOne in its attempt at sending the first piloted private spacecraft into space. White Knight, the carrier jet, is currently heading up to 50,000 feet where it will release the SpaceShipOne space craft. Then SpaceShipOne will fire its rocket to take it up to 62 miles, the start of space above the Earth’s atmosphere. The pilot, Michael Melvill, is expected to spend about three minutes in weightlessness before gliding back down to earth.

Ansari X Prize competitor Scaled Composites plans to launch on June 21, 2004 the first piloted private spaceship into space, something that only governments have accomplished since Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space on April 12, 1961. The public is invited to the launch, scheduled for early morning. While not an attempt for the Ansari X Prize, the launch will help usher in a new era of private enterprise in space. This comes at a time when the Moon-to-Mars Commission appointed by President Bush has recommended increasing federal support and NASA reliance on the private sector to reach his goals.