Endeavour flies again!

Today had the most wonderful event at 6:03pm, Endeavour and her crew of 7, finally, after 5 tries and 5 scrubs, made it off on Mission STS-127 to space!!! Praise the Lord!! I completely forgot about it until 5:30, and promptly shot to the nearest clock to make sure I hadn't missed it. :) I rushed around putting my camera card back in, deleting pics, updating my FB and Google status' so that people online would know how to watch the live feed, getting out the binoculars, and, most importantly - watching the live NASA TV feed on the computer. The only thing better than being out at the VIP seating and watching it go up, is watching and hearing the feed between Houston, KSC and Endeavour. Second to only that, this gets me the most geared up, in the mood, happy, adrenaline rushed, and excited.

If in "excited" you define it as: hands shaking, bouncing in chair, almost crying, checking and re-checking, and RE-checking your camera, staring so hard at the countdown clock that you aren't even blinking, and yelling out to the rest of the house what is happening and how many minutes are left in a hold. "The weather is a complete GO! TOTAL GREEN! AAAH!"(this one required running into the kitchen at full speed for mom to hear, to which she calmly replies - "Oh, good.", and running out yet again at full speed). And then - "Final checks are DONE!", "T-minus 5 mins. 30 seconds!!", "They may start their pre-ignite start!!", "T-minus 4 mins!!"... and so on. Let me just say that saying I was "excited" may or may not have been the understatement of the year. My family may or may not attest to that statement.

Okay. Now that we have that established. We move on. To bigger and better things. Like going outside to watch it. But first! Pictures that I took for you all that did not watch the live feed. For you ... that ...(sob) had the .... horrible misfortune to have missed such ... such a tremendous event! See?

NASA TV playing on the computer.

Oh. My. Not much longer now. The hissing coolant steam around the main engines ... sets my heart beating faster and faster!

Here my excitement is so great that I take a picture of myself and only get my huge grin, and cut off my head. But who cares? Not I.
A shot of the countdown clock - just 9 minutes!!!

For those of you that have never seen this on TV, this is the Crew access arm that attaches to the side of the shuttle. You can see the hatch for Endeavour as the B&W circle. :)

Pulling back away from the shuttle, preparing for launch! Go, Endeavour!

The view out of that room just makes your heart stop, doesn't it? Wow.

Me - sooo incredibly excited and ready to watch her go up!!! Yay, yay, YAY!
One last shot of the feed before going outside!! I'll tell you, hearing Mission Control say - "It is now time to fly, Godspeed Endeavour", was just so special to hear yet again.

There she is. It never, never gets old.

"Go, baby, go." .... "Go, Endeavour!!!!"

How she slices through the sky with unfettered power and precision.

There she goes!!! Cheers and clapping surrounded me as neighbors stood shading their eyes and watching proudly... and gladly! We are so happy to finally have it off on our 6th try! :D

And I was able to capture the fighter trail planes from Patrick Air Force Base that form a triangle in the sky to control airspace! I saw them leave! They never leave quietly. :) Haha.

You always hear their roaring and "hear" their g-pulling moves. :)

What a view they have! I'd pay half a million dollars to be in one of those planes for the launch!

The smoke trail. Sometimes it makes the craziest shapes, but today it was just very perfect ... falling into seperate fluffly clouds.


I waited until all the rumbling and trembling of the sound reaching us had stopped, and could no longer see the shuttle. Or the boosters, unfortunately. I did not see them at all, just the burst of the separation flame. I was SO pleased to hear the rumbling, because the last launch we had, the wind was not with us, and we heard nothing. Which was eerie, and I didn't like it. At all. :) Hah.

Then I rushed back in, to watch the news feed some more. :) This is amazing. The camera is attached to the yellow tank on the bottom (the External fuel tank), and it records everything until separation. You can see the curve of the earth in the background. :)

And we have separation of the shuttle and fuel tank at just 9 minutes after liftoff! Wow!

The shuttle (top) falling away from the tank.

A zoomed in shot. :)

Hooray for a wonderful and yet another amazing launch! Godspeed, Endeavour and her crew! May God bring you all home safely, and may you truly give only One the glory - the God who created it all.

As she disappeared into the clouds and atmosphere, I whispered with true thankfulness and sobriety mixed with absolute amazement .... as I have every launch since we lost our Columbia crew ... "Thank you, Lord.".

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me bless His most holy name!

A girl with a whole lot of Kennedy Space Center pride,
~ Jean Marie