The space shuttle Discovery finally blasted off from the Kennedy Space Centre in Cape Canaveral, Florida, yesterday after several days of delays, to lend a spectacular fiery flourish to America's Independence Day celebrations.
Nasa's first July 4th launch in 45 years of manned spaceflight provided a welcome distraction from the continuing controversy over the safety of the fuel tank's foam insulation and the frustration of two aborted lift-offs due to poor weather.
Discovery and its crew of seven enjoyed an apparently flawless ascent to orbit after its launch at 2.38pm (7.38pm BST) on its 13- day, 8 million-km mission to the International Space Station (ISS).
A briefcase-sized slab of foam peeling from the external fuel tank at lift-off struck a hole in the wing of the shuttle Columbia in 2003, leading to the death of seven astronauts.
Despite a redesign of the fuel tank, the problem recurred during last year's first return-to-flight mission when a 0.45kg chunk of foam narrowly missed Discovery.
Last night's blast-off was also in doubt when launchpad technicians found a 12.7cm crack and a 7.6cm piece of foam missing near a fuel-line bracket after the tank was drained following the abandoned launch on Sunday.
The mission is only Nasa's second since the Columbia disaster. Nasa is racing to finish the construction of the ISS before the shuttle fleet is retired in 2010.