Columbia thundered into orbit Monday on a record-long medical research mission featuring the first animal dissections in space.
The 2,000-ton spaceship blasted off with seven astronauts and 48 rats at 8:53 a.m. MDT, piercing scattered clouds as it headed out over the Atlantic Ocean.It was NASA's third attempt to send Columbia on the 14-day flight, the longest planned for a shuttle. Liftoff was delayed 10 seconds because of a plane that was briefly in the restricted launch area. The first two tries Thursday and Friday were thwarted by computer and communications system failures.
"Guys, the third time's a charm," orbiter test director Brian Monborne assured the crew before liftoff.
Columbia was stocked with a fresh batch of rats for Monday's launch, some of which will be decapitated and dissected in orbit - a space first.
Within minutes, Columbia reached its intended 176-mile-high orbit on the thrust of three liquid-fueled engines.
It is NASA's 58th shuttle flight and only the second devoted to medical research.
Two crew members - veterinarian Martin Fettman and biochemist Shannon Lucid - left in place from last week the catheters intended to help measure blood pressure during the flight.
Each of the astronauts will submit to numerous medical tests aimed at studying body changes in weightlessness and space motion sickness, which afflicts two-thirds of all astronauts. Such information is vital as NASA plans longer and longer space flights.
Two of the crew members are physicians: M. Rhea Seddon and David Wolf. Rounding out the crew are commander John Blaha, pilot Richard Searfoss and William McArthur Jr., former test pilots.
The rats are intended for much more intensive testing.
Fettman and the other scientists will draw blood from the rats, inject radioactive isotopes and hormones, and collect the animal droppings to measure calcium content, an indicator of bone loss.
NASA program scientist Frank Sulzman said rats undergo physical changes in weightlessness faster than humans, making the animals valuable research tools.