The space shuttle Atlantis has taken off after a lot of delays.

The craft is taking six astronauts into orbit above the Earth to work on the
The shuttle was held up by lots of things, including a tropical storm, being struck by lightning, and a lot of technical problems.

Saturday was space agency Nasa's last chance for a while to launch the ship from the Kennedy Space Centre, which is in Florida, in America.

If there had been any other hold ups, the mission would have had to wait until later in September so it didn't interfere with a Russian mission.

The six astronauts aboard the shuttle are going to help carry on building the International Space Station (ISS).

They're taking solar panels to the station which will double the amount of electricity it can make.

1. When was the first Nasa shuttle flight?

A, 5 May 1936

B, 15 October 1975

C, 12 April 1981

2. Which orbiter never left the Earth's atmosphere, and now sits in a museum?

 A: Enterprise

B, Atlantis

C, Endeavour

3. What is a 'launch window'?

A, the window the astronauts look out of during take-off

B, the precise period of time in which a launch must occur

C, The name of the area the shuttle sits on before take-off

4. In what year was the Challenger shuttle accident?

A, 1982

B, 1986

C, 1990

5. How fast does a shuttle travel to remain in orbit?

A, 150mph

B, 10,800mph

C, 17,500 mph

6. Why was the launch of the shuttle Discovery delayed in 1995?

A, The astronauts had a late lunch

B, Woodpeckers made holes in the foam insulation

C, The door wouldn’t close properly

7, Why do shuttles need powerful rockets to take off?

A, to escape the pull of Earth’s gravity

B to help steer the shuttle

C, So they can be easily seen by tracking stations

 
8,  What's the longest time a shuttle has spent in space?

A,  17 days, 15 hours, 53 minutes, 18 seconds

B, 37 days, 10 hours, 40 minutes, 10 seconds

C, 1 year

NASA’s links to Ascension Island ended with the closure of the NASA site in 1990.  We can still see a large building, however without the tracking dishes, it no longer holds the grandeur that it did when it opened in 1967.

The station tracked many spacecraft, manned and unmanned, and with the help of the C&W site, relayed communications data to Houston and several other NASA centers around the country (States).  Of course the most famous of which was the Space-Shuttle. When the site was operational, it was nothing to hear over the in-house intercom voice transmission between the site, the space vehicle (if manned), and Houston Control.  It was a very exciting time.

Some of the NASA Devil's Ashpit personnel on duty during Apollo 11.

The Americans kindly left the building for the 1^st Ascension Island Scout Group when NASA left the island in 1990.  This large hall is now used as a large games room and also for the occasional disco. This main area was originally used by NASA as the Operations Floor. It was packed with various computers (large main-frame), communications consoles, tracking and data relay consoles, and specific telemetry spacecraft consoles.