Endeavour Lifts Off on Its Final Flight

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — With Gabrielle Giffords, the wounded Arizona congresswoman, watching from a wheelchair, the shuttle Endeavour lifted off Monday morning on a mission to pry secrets from the universe.

At 8:56 a.m. Eastern time, the spacecraft rose slowly on a pillar of fire, picking up speed and eventually disappearing from view as it stabbed through a layer of clouds on its way to orbit. Commanding the six-man crew was Capt. Mark E. Kelly, Ms. Giffords’s husband.

The congresswoman, who was shot in the head in an assassination attempt in January, watched in private with relatives of other crew members and said, “Good stuff, good stuff,” as the shuttle rocketed away, according to her chief of staff, Pia Carusone. Captain Kelly’s twin brother, Scott, who is also an astronaut, gave a bouquet of roses to Ms. Giffords, who was wearing her husband’s wedding ring on a chain around her neck.

Outside, crowds that law enforcement officials had estimated could reach half a million people watched the liftoff, the next to last in the 30-year shuttle program.

“It was a fantastic launch,” said Michael P. Moses, director of the mission’s management team. “A great day for us.”

It was the second try at a liftoff for the Endeavour, which was grounded by an electrical short circuit on April 29. NASA officials said that the shuttle’s three main engines performed well during the 8 1/2-minute ascent and that the power system that had been the source of the electrical problem functioned perfectly.

About 40 minutes into the flight, the crew fired maneuvering engines to alter the shuttle’s orbit so it could meet up with the International Space Station on Wednesday, more than 200 miles above the Earth.

Once docked at the station, the astronauts will begin work on the 16-day mission’s main objective: installing the $2 billion Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, a giant magnet designed to sift through cosmic particles to find evidence of the elusive so-called dark matter that is thought to pervade the universe.

As the launching time approached, low clouds were the only concern, because NASA rules require good visibility should the shuttle have to make an emergency landing back at the space center. The clouds proved no problem, although they did obscure the view of spectators a little more than 20 seconds into the flight.

“We had the clouds where we needed them, so we went,” Mr. Moses said. “We apologize that the view wasn’t the best.”

About two hours before the liftoff, NASA technicians had to make a quick repair on one of the shuttle’s fragile ceramic tiles, which was found to be damaged when the crew hatch was closed. During the first few minutes of flight, a few small pieces of foam insulation were seen coming off the shuttle’s huge external fuel tank, officials said, but a first analysis suggested that they did not cause any damage to the spacecraft. Damage from falling foam led to the destruction of the shuttle Columbia during re-entry in 2003.

On Monday morning, Ms. Giffords arrived at the launch control center — where family members normally view launchings — about 7 a.m., her chief of staff said. As the weather improved, “she got very excited ’cause it looked like it was a go,” Ms. Carusone said at a news conference. By Ms. Giffords’s side were her mother, Gloria, and Captain Kelly’s two daughters from an earlier marriage, Claire and Claudia. After the liftoff, there were celebratory hugs all around.

Several hours after the launching, Ms. Giffords left the space center for Houston, where she has been recovering at a rehabilitation hospital. Ms. Carusone said that it had not been decided whether the congresswoman would return for the landing, which is scheduled for June 1 about 2:30 a.m.

Asked at the news conference whether Ms. Giffords now understands what happened to her, Ms. Carusone replied, “She’s not aware of everything, but as she processes this, as anyone would, she’s learned more.”

Ms. Carusone said that the brevity of Ms. Giffords’s “good stuff” comment reflected both the difficulty she had in regaining complete speech abilities and the situation. “For all of us, there’s not many words to describe watching the shuttle launch in person,” she said.

She added that there were no plans for Ms. Giffords to make a public appearance. “We’re far from that,” she said. “It’s not a discussion we’ve had.”

This is the 25th and last flight of the Endeavour, which was built after the shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after a launching in 1986. The Endeavour, which first flew in 1992, will eventually be put on display at a science museum in Los Angeles. Only the flight of the shuttle Atlantis, scheduled for July, is left on NASA’s calendar.

In addition to Captain Kelly and the shuttle’s pilot, Gregory H. Johnson, the Endeavour’s passenger manifest consists of four mission specialists: Mike Fincke, Andrew J. Feustel, Gregory Errol Chamitoff and Roberto Vittori, a colonel in the Italian Air Force. The astronauts will conduct four spacewalks, performing maintenance tasks at the station and delivering a crate of spare parts.