Discovery launched with spare loo pump and mini lab

Cape Canaveral (Florida): Lugging an enormous new lab, shuttle Discovery was in fast pursuit of the international space station on Sunday following a spectacular launch that one astronaut called ''the greatest show on Earth.''

Discovery and its crew of seven thundered into orbit late Saturday afternoon, carrying up Japan's US$1 billion lab as well as a spare pump for the space station's malfunctioning toilet.

The shuttle will reach its destination Monday.

''Obviously a huge day,'' NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said, for all of 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 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 is 37 feet (11.3 metres) long and more than 32,000 pounds (14,500 kilograms), 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.

Nearly 400 Japanese journalists, space program officials and other guests jammed NASA's launch site, their excitement growing as the hours, then minutes counted down.

Just before liftoff, commander Mark Kelly noted that Kibo was the ''hope for the space station,'' then radioed: ''Now stand by for the greatest show on Earth!''

''It's great to be in space,'' he later said.

His new wife, Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, cheered and held on to her mother and mother-in-law as Discovery rose into a brilliantly blue sky dotted with a few clouds. A few dozen political friends attended the launch at the couple's invitation.

''It was just fantastic. It was really amazing,'' Giffords told The Associated Press.

Although it was a relatively smooth launch the only problem was the apparent failure of a backup set of electronics for swiveling engines Giffords said she wouldn't relax until the shuttle is back from its 14-day mission.

About five pieces of debris _ what appeared to be thin pieces of insulating foam broke off the fuel tank during liftoff, but the losses did not occur during the crucial first two minutes and should be of no concern, said NASA's space operations chief, Bill Gerstenmaier. This was the first tank to have all safety changes prompted by the 2003 Columbia disaster built in from the start.

Discovery's rendezvous with the space station on Monday will provide a good look at the shuttle's thermal skin, Gerstenmaier said. The astronauts cannot conduct a full inspection until near the end of the flight, much later than usual, because their inspection boom is at the space station. There wasn't room for it aboard Discovery, given Kibo's size, and so the last shuttle visitors left behind their boom.

Kelly and his U.S.-Japanese crew plan three spacewalks to install Kibo, replace an empty nitrogen-gas tank and try out various cleaning methods on a clogged solar-wing rotating joint.

The space station's two Russian residents, meanwhile, will put in the new toilet pump, which was rushed to Florida from Moscow just last week. For days, the three occupants have had to manually flush the toilet with extra water several times a day, a time-consuming, water-wasting job.

One of Discovery's astronauts, Gregory Chamitoff, will move into the space station for a six-month stay. He will replace Garrett Reisman, who will return to Earth aboard the shuttle.