The Space Shuttle Discovery has now launched successfully from the Kennedy Space Center on the 4th of July 2006 (US Independence Day) at 1438 EDT (1838 GMT) heading it’s way to the International Space Station (ISS).

However though it was a successfully launch, NASA is luckey to be lauching at all as this is the first shuttle flight of 2006 and only the second since the catastrophic loss of the Columbia orbiter three years ago.

So as you can imagine this launch was a very crucial one, especially as on Monday a small breakage was then found in the insulating foam of the shuttle’s external fuel tank.

This of course caused people to believe that the shuttle should not be launched just in case the enviable happens, however NASA officials said the defect posed no risk to the vehicle and the mission was an all go.

I watched it live earlier and all go it was, right on time as well which was great!

Now let’s just hope that the Space Shuttle Discovery’s return home to the Kennedy Space Center on the 16th of July 2006 is a successful one.

For those of you who missed it live you can now watch a reply on Msn Videos here.

More news available at the Official NASA Site and BBC News

Image above: Discovery lift offs from Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Photo credit: NASA