Clay Anderson aboard Atlantis intends to break the record

June 09: The US space shuttle Atlantis blasted off flawlessly with seven astronauts on Friday evening for the first phase of construction mission of the International space station to put the NASA back on track.

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The space shuttle will also bring home Sunita Williams, an American female astronaut after a six months long journey in the space. She will join her family on June 19, provided there are no obstacles. The fuel tank of the space ship was damaged few months ago while it was on the mission and was temporarily repaired by the astronauts.

Atlantis blasted off from a newly established launch pad at 7:38 US time in the blood colored shiny sunset atmosphere on Friday June 8 from Florida's Kennedy Space Centre with emerging red colored flame and foam to accomplish the mission to construct the International space station construction and to fetch Sunita Williams to the earth. Astronaut Clay Anderson will replace Sunita and will make a new record of spending longest time in the space till now. Sunita has spent 185 days in the space while Shannon Lucid had spent longest ever 188 days 4 hours. Clay Anderson will break this record.

The US shuttle Atlantis has successfully left the earth and has reached its orbit. "The team really performed well. And it's a really good day for NASA and for this nation's Space Programme," said NASA associate administrator Rex Geveden with Atlantis safely in orbit after a ‘flawless launch’.

This was the first launch from the Kennedy’s Space Centre pad since the unfortunate accident held in 2003 when space shuttle Columbia evaporated while returning on the earth after completing the mission successfully because of the damage in the insulation area in which Indian born Kalpana Chawla along with seven other astronauts were killed.