The 4:14 am(local time) blastoff from the Kennedy Space Center shattered the predawn tranquillity with a deafening roar and a brilliant tower of flames that momentarily turned the dark Florida sky as bright as day.
“What a beautiful launch we had this morning,” said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA’s associate administrator for space flight. “This is a great start to a very complicated mission.”
Low clouds had forced Nasa to postpone Endeavour’s first launch attempt on Sunday morning.
Scattered clouds rolled in off the Atlantic on Monday morning as well, but cleared enough for Endeavour to slip through and begin its 13-day mission.
The shuttle carries the station’s last connecting hub and a dome-shaped cupola with seven windows to provide the crew with panoramic views outside the station. Endeavour’s crew is to install them during three spacewalks.
The modules were built in Italy for Nasa and will complete US assembly of the orbital outpost, a $100-billion project of 16 nations that has been under construction since 1998.
Four more shuttle missions remain to deliver cargo platforms, spare parts and experiments before the fleet is retired later this year. Monday’s launch was the last scheduled to take place in the dark.
“Every launch is a little bittersweet,” said Mike Moses, a shuttle programme manager at the Kennedy Space Center.
“We are one closer to the end,” Moses added.
The shuttle is scheduled to reach the station on Wednesday for a nine-day stay.