KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. - At liftoff of Space Shuttle Columbia, a torrent of water begins to flow from rainbirds (at bottom left and right) onto the Mobile Launcher Platform to help with sound suppression. Acoustical levels reach their peak when the Space Shuttle is about 300 feet above the MLP. There are six 12-foot rainbirds mounted on the MLP. Liftoff of Columbia on mission STS-109 occurred at 6:22:02:08 a.m. EST (11:22:02:08 GMT). This was the 27th flight of the vehicle and 108th in the history of the Shuttle program. The goal of the mission is the maintenance and upgrade of the Hubble Space Telescope, to be carried out in five spacewalks. The crew comprises Commander Scott D. Altman, Pilot Duane G. Carey, Payload Commander John M. Grunsfeld, and Mission Specialists Nancy Jane Currie, Richard M. Linnehan, James H. Newman and Michael J. Massimino. After the 11-day mission, Columbia is expected to return to KSC March 12 about 4:35 a.m. EST (09:35 GMT) KSC-02pp0230
Summary
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. - At liftoff of Space Shuttle Columbia, a torrent of water begins to flow from rainbirds (at bottom left and right) onto the Mobile Launcher Platform to help with sound suppression. Acoustical levels reach their peak when the Space Shuttle is about 300 feet above the MLP. There are six 12-foot rainbirds mounted on the MLP. Liftoff of Columbia on mission STS-109 occurred at 6:22:02:08 a.m. EST (11:22:02:08 GMT). This was the 27th flight of the vehicle and 108th in the history of the Shuttle program. The goal of the mission is the maintenance and upgrade of the Hubble Space Telescope, to be carried out in five spacewalks. The crew comprises Commander Scott D. Altman, Pilot Duane G. Carey, Payload Commander John M. Grunsfeld, and Mission Specialists Nancy Jane Currie, Richard M. Linnehan, James H. Newman and Michael J. Massimino. After the 11-day mission, Columbia is expected to return to KSC March 12 about 4:35 a.m. EST (09:35 GMT)
The Space Shuttle program was the United States government's manned launch vehicle program from 1981 to 2011, administered by NASA and officially beginning in 1972. The Space Shuttle system—composed of an orbiter launched with two reusable solid rocket boosters and a disposable external fuel tank— carried up to eight astronauts and up to 50,000 lb (23,000 kg) of payload into low Earth orbit (LEO). When its mission was complete, the orbiter would re-enter the Earth's atmosphere and lands as a glider. Although the concept had been explored since the late 1960s, the program formally commenced in 1972 and was the focus of NASA's manned operations after the final Apollo and Skylab flights in the mid-1970s. It started with the launch of the first shuttle Columbia on April 12, 1981, on STS-1. and finished with its last mission, STS-135 flown by Atlantis, in July 2011.
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