Canadian Space Agency astronaut Julie Payette departs crew quarters for a launch attempt for the space shuttle Endeavour at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on July 15, 2009.SCOTT AUDETTE
The space shuttle Endeavour roared into space Wednesday as NASA dispatched Canada's Julie Payette to a historic rendezvous with a fellow Canadian astronaut.
"There's nothing routine about standing next to the spacecraft or being strapped in; it's an immense privilege and it's quite awesome," Ms. Payette said in a cellphone call from the launch pad as she was about to board Endeavour.
"It's an absolutely magnificent vehicle; it's incredible."
NASA had hoped yet another menacing thunderstorm would move past Cape Canaveral before Wednesday's scheduled launch time of 6:03 p.m. ET, the eve of the 40th anniversary for the liftoff of the first moon landing.
Endeavour has been grounded five times previously - twice in June due to a potentially dangerous hydrogen fuel leak, and three times in the past week because of electrical storms that blew too close to the Kennedy Space Center's seaside launch pad.
"This is the nature of the game in Florida in mid-July," Ms. Payette said in a call to a Canadian Space Agency official about three hours before the scheduled launch.
The official put Ms. Payette on speaker phone, and Canadian journalists assembled at the space centre to cover the launch peppered her with questions.
Once the shuttle was fuelled up, Payette and her six crewmates boarded the spaceship to await blastoff, just as they have twice previously.
Endeavour was sitting at the same spot where Apollo 11's Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins rocketed into history on July 16, 1969.
Endeavour's numerous delays have not helped NASA's tight deadline to complete the space station by the end of next year. Eight shuttle flights remain, all geared toward that goal.
The voyage will mark a historic moment for Canada when Payette meets up at the space station with fellow Canadian astronaut Robert Thirsk, 55, of New Westminster, B.C.
It will be the first time Canada has had two astronauts in space at the same time.
Mr. Thirsk is spending six months at the space station, laying the groundwork for deploying Canadian robots onto other planets.
Ms. Payette is taking Canadian treats to space - in addition to the maple butter, there's maple syrup, maple cookies and Alberta beef jerky.
There's a bittersweet element to the mission - NASA is scheduled to shut down the space shuttle program in 2010, and will use Russian airlifts to the space station until the next generation of U.S. spacecraft is ready in 2015.
Ms. Payette's presence will represent the last time a Canadian boards a space shuttle.
The program has been rocked by two disasters in 126 previous missions. In 1986, Challenger exploded 73 seconds after liftoff, and six years ago, Columbia disintegrated upon re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere.
Kennedy Space Center is a seaside symbol of the power of scientific technology, but nature has always had the upper hand. The shuttle launches on schedule an estimated 40 per cent of the time, and poor weather is the culprit in about a third of all scrubs.
Even woodpeckers - who live happily in the national wildlife refuge where Kennedy Space Center is located - once delayed a shuttle mission after boring more than 200 holes into its foam insulation.
Technical problems also commonly keep the shuttle on the ground. A fully loaded shuttle weighs almost 590,000 kilograms and includes complex circuitry and moving parts that can malfunction.
It was tiny failures, in fact, that resulted in the two disasters.