Threatening skies cleared yesterday for the shuttle Atlantis to launch Lynchburg native Leland Melvin into a three-way tie as NASA's 300th American astronaut in space.

The 2:45 p.m. liftoff came after a delay of more than two months as NASA engineers struggled to correct troublesome fuel-level sensors on the shuttle's external tank. Engineers repaired the nagging sensor issue, and yesterday it was nearby showers rather than technical problems that officials feared might ground Atlantis.

"There were people trying to talk rain . . . and I said, 'No, we're going up,'" said Melvin's sister, Cathy Clarke of Rustburg.

Clarke said about 100 relatives and friends of Melvin's gathered in Florida, many for the second time, to see him off from Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39A. They sat near the water's edge in the viewing bleachers and sang the national anthem as the blastoff approached.

"It was extremely smooth from start to finish," said NASA launch director Doug Lyons.

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Melvin's childhood friend Phillip Scott, a Chesterfield County resident, returned to Florida with his 10-year-old daughter and his wife to see the liftoff.

"It's indescribable," Scott said of watching a friend fly into space. "When it initially lights and you see the smoke and flames, it's almost surreal."

Dozens of people at the University of Richmond, Melvin's alma mater, watched the liftoff of the former chemistry major on a widescreen TV at the Tyler Haynes Commons. Melvin, UR's first Spider in space, is carrying school memorabilia on the 11-day mission.

Junior Matt Fanelli, 21, of Danville, Pa., wore a special UR "Spider"-man T-shirt in honor of Melvin. "It was exciting," said Fanelli, who noted that he works in the chemistry lab where Melvin worked in the 1980s -- before Fanelli was born.

Melvin's former chemistry professor William Myers arranged for a colleague to cover his classes so he could return to Florida for the twice-postponed launch.

"It's just about the most amazing thing I have ever seen," Myers said. "I cried; everybody from Richmond sitting around me cried."

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While majoring in chemistry at UR, Melvin set school records as a wide receiver on the football team. After a short, injury-ridden career in the National Football League, he joined NASA in 1989, first at Langley Research Center in Hampton. He was selected for the astronaut class of 1998 and assigned in 2006 to the STS-122 Atlantis mission.

Atlantis and its seven-man crew originally were slated for blastoff Dec. 6. The crew's main mission is to attach a $2 billion European space laboratory module to the International Space Station and get it ready for work. As mission specialist 1, Melvin is the primary operator of the space station's robotic arm.

Melvin also will use the shuttle's robotic arm. He will operate it today to inspect the shuttle's protective heat shield. NASA considers the inspection a crucial task in the aftermath of the explosion of the shuttle Columbia, which was lost because of damage it sustained during launch.

Melvin's chief duty is to manipulate the nearly 58-foot-long space station arm, remove the 13-ton lab module from the space shuttle's belly and attach the module to the station. The maneuvers are expected to take about 2½ hours to complete.

The Columbus laboratory module is the cornerstone of the European Space Agency's contributions to the space station. It will allow scientists to conduct experiments in materials science, life science and fluid physics.

Columbus "brings to the space station truly international capability and participation," said NASA Administrator Michael Griffin.
Contact A.J. Hostetler at (804) 649-6355 or ahostetler@timesdispatch.com.