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CAPE CANAVERAL, July 4: The US space shuttle Discovery roared off its Florida launch pad on Tuesday on a voyage to the International Space Station, a mission whose failure would likely ground the shuttle fleet permanently.
Discovery, carrying seven astronauts, lifted off from the seaside launch site at 1838 GMT and soared into sunny skies, jettisoning its booster rockets about 150 seconds into the flight. It reached orbit safely about nine minutes after launch.
Postponed twice during the weekend due to bad weather, the launch was just the second since the destruction of the shuttle Columbia and the deaths of seven crew members in Feb 2003.—Reuters
