Senior NASA officials spoke glowingly of the shuttle Atlantis' performance late Friday after the orbiter shot into space this evening without any significant hiccups."We had a very good countdown and launch," said NASA associate administrator Rex Geveden in a post-launch news conference. "The space shuttle Atlantis is safely in orbit for the STS-117 mission."
Atlantis lifted off from Pad 39A here at NASA's seaside Kennedy Space Center at 7:38:04 p.m. EDT (2338:04 GMT), rising on a sinuous cloud of expanding smoke in a blue sky still illuminated by sunlight.
"It was a beautiful launch," said NASA launch director Mike Leinbach. "I had forgotten how beautiful they were."
Atlantis' launch occurred three months late, after a freak hail storm in late February gouged thousands of dents and divots on the tip of the shuttle's foam-covered external fuel tank and pushed the mission from its initial March 15 target.
The event prompted NASA to wait for lengthy repairs that required engineers to sand away damaged areas of the fuel tank and apply new foam insulation. Despite its speckled appearance, the repaired fuel tank performed nominally, said shuttle program manager Wayne Hale.
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