Discovery blasts off with lab piece on board

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Space shuttle Discovery and a crew of seven blasted into orbit Saturday, carrying a giant Japanese lab addition to the international space station along with something more mundane – a toilet pump.

Discovery roared into the sky at 5:02 p.m., right on time.

The shuttle’s trip to the space station should take two days. Once there, Discovery’s crew will unload and install the $1 billion lab and hand-deliver a specially made pump for the outpost’s finicky toilet.

The school-bus-size lab, named Kibo, Japanese for hope, will be the biggest room by far at the space station and bring the orbiting outpost to three-quarters of completion.

“It’s a gorgeous day to launch,” NASA’s launch director, Mike Leinbach, told the astronauts just before liftoff, wishing them good luck and Godspeed. Commander Mark Kelly noted that Kibo was the “hope for the space station,” then radioed: “Now stand by for the greatest show on Earth!”

NASA officials hailed the mission as a milestone.

“Obviously a huge day,” NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said, for the space station partners “and really for all the people who hope to see space station come to fruition and do what it was designed to do.”

The Japanese lab is 37 feet long and more than 32,000 pounds, and fills Discovery’s entire payload bay. The first part of the lab flew up in March, and the third and final section will be launched next year.

The entire lab, with all its pieces, cost more than $2 billion.