Atlantis Launch Called "Flawless"

Space Shuttle Atlantis lifted off for a mission to ISS at 1428 Monday afternoon, in what NASA called a "Flawless" launch.

"What a great way to start this mission," said Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for Space Operations. "I can't say enough about the teams that got this vehicle ready to fly."

Gerstenmaier congratulated the teams and the work they accomplished preparing the payload and vehicle for this complex and ambitious mission. "We still have a tough mission in front of us … but it (the shuttle) looked really, really good," Gerstenmaier continued.

Mike Moses, mission management team chairman, remarked that the launch ended up being picture-perfect after a low-layer of clouds settled over the center for the first few hours of the countdown. "As a management team we had no issues of any note to talk about," Moses said. "It (the countdown) was nice and quiet and smooth." 

"We had a great countdown today," said Mike Leinbach, shuttle launch director. He said Atlantis broke the record for the lowest problems reported, previously held by space shuttle Discovery. "It's due to the team and the hardware processing. They just did a great job."

NASA Photo

The record will probably never be broken again in the history of the Space Shuttle Program, so congratulations to them," Leinbach continued.

Leinbach also honored the midbody team with an award for the processing of Atlantis' payload bay, which included the turnaround "down-processing" after the return of Atlantis from the Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission. He said they did an outstanding job and they deserved their award today.

FMI: www.nasa.gov