Night launch of the space shuttle Discovery on mission STS-116

The space shuttle Discovery took off this morning (Sunday, 03:47 Israel time) to the International Space Station

The space shuttle Discovery and its crew of seven astronauts took off on Saturday, at 20:47 local time (Sunday, 03:47 Israel time) from the Kennedy Space Center. It was the first nighttime launch of a space shuttle in four years. Until now, NASA has limited the launches to daytime hours so that it would be possible to photograph their progress and check whether ice shards fell from the outer fuel tank casing that could endanger the shuttle, as happened in the Columbia disaster.

After arriving in orbit, the crew members are supposed to open the cargo deck doors, boot the computers and equipment and test the shuttle's robotic arm. During the day, they are also supposed to perform a careful inspection of the heat protection system with the help of the arm and the cameras connected to it. The ferry is expected to arrive at the station on Monday at 17:05 (Tuesday, midnight Israel time).

The STS-115 crew will dock with the International Space Station, install the P5 component to its main axis, and perform three spacewalks to rewire the space station to supply electricity produced by the new solar arrays installed on the shuttle in September.

STS-116 will perform a station crew swap, with Sunita Williams joining the 14th crew as a flight engineer. In its place, the German astronaut, on behalf of the European Space Agency, Thomas Reiter, who has been on the station since July, will return to Earth on the shuttle. The two veteran astronauts on the team are Mark Polanski and Robert Korbim, who will perform three spacewalks during the "Discovery" mission. The other members of the team are: William O'Flynn, John Higginbotham, Nicholas Patrick, and Krister Vogelsang, the first Swede ever to fly into space.