Discovery shuttle heads for station

After a successful lift-off, the US space shuttle Discovery headed for the International Space Station early yesterday, carrying a final pair of solar panels due to be installed ahead of the arrival of an expanded space crew.

The spacecraft, launched from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, reached the orbit just over eight minutes later. The journey to the station was expected to take two days.

Mike Leinbach, launch director for the mission, said the lift-off was picture-perfect.

"I have seen a lot of launches ... and this was the most visually beautiful," he told reporters in a briefing. "It was just spectacular. When the orbiter and the tank booster got up in the sun light... It was just gorgeous."

The mission, one of the last major tasks of the more than decade-long effort to construct the station, has been shortened by one day, after a hydrogen leak last week led to a scrub of an earlier launch date.

But Nasa officials said that the problem had been cleared up and that there has been no recurrence of the malfunction.

The leak was discovered on Wednesday, when the external tank was 98 per cent full of liquid hydrogen prompting it to be emptied for the checks. In all, the shuttle mission was delayed five times since February.

Once the Discovery mission installs the solar truss - last major segment to be attached to the ISS which itself was begun in 1998 - the space station will become fully operational and capable of housing six astronauts, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said.

The mission also will allow space officials to make a swap of personnel, exchanging Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, for US astronaut Sandra Magnus, who will be returning to earth after four months in space.

Mr Wakata, of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, who is travelling aboard Discovery, will become the first Japanese crew member on the station. Last week's scrubbed launch forced space officials to shorten what had been planned as a 14-day mission to 13 days, and to scrap one of four planned spacewalks. However, officials said the scheduling adjustments should not affect the mission to deliver and install a fourth pair of solar panels to the ISS.

Installing the solar panels on the €77.3-billion station was to take a two-astronaut team four space walks of more than six hours each to complete, according to Nasa's original plans.