The forces of liftoff tended to pull the cans apart slightly where they joined.
Information on past flights is available, beginning with the first shuttle liftoff on April 12, 1981.
So we'll once again see two Space Shuttles staged for liftoff for the last time.
The liftoff was part of a program aimed at putting a Chinese citizen on the Moon by 2020.
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For a few clips of liftoff and the docking itself check out the NASA link in the source.
The night before liftoff, these two Thiokol engineers, along with several colleagues, tried to convince NASA to postpone liftoff.
That engineer and several others were not surprised when Challenger exploded 73 seconds after liftoff on Jan. 28, 1986.
At liftoff, with no explosion, he began to wonder whether he'd been wrong.
The shuttle had leaked thousands of pounds of fuel during liftoff, leaving it in a lopsided but functional orbit.
Curiously, for students of the human psyche, Andersen's downbeat report didn't effect the roaring liftoff of the Net-heavy NASDAQ exchange.
Twenty minutes after liftoff, space officials said the AfriStar satellite weighing 6, 038 pound (2, 739 kg) separated from the Ariane rocket.
Unexpected high temperature inside one of the Falcon 9 rocket's engines prompted an automated shutdown less than a second before liftoff.
Markets showed relief when North Korea's rocket launch on Friday morning fizzled out, with the rocket breaking apart soon after liftoff.
Liftoff of the Falcon 9 rocket, its Dragon capsule filled with food, supplies and science experiments, had been scheduled for 4:55 a.m.
If I were selling the same idea over and over, then I'd have to work harder every time to get the same liftoff.
Glenn, who will fly on a 10-day mission tentatively scheduled for an October 8 liftoff, said he is mentally and physically ready for the mission.
Just as CNN has covered every space shuttle launch extensively since the shuttle's first liftoff in 1981, CNN Interactive now covers shuttle launches on its Web site.
Some of those Thiokol engineers expected o-ring failures at liftoff.
But roughly 11 minutes after liftoff when the Dragon capsule already had separated from the rocket's second stage three of the spacecraft's four clusters of chemically-fueled thrusters failed to turn on.
One such foam chunk is thought to have struck the leading edge of Columbia during liftoff, creating a puncture that proved fatal as the orbiter reentered the atmosphere 16 days later.
Pyongyang's state television made no mention of the South Korean launch, but about an hour after liftoff it showed archive footage of North Koreans cheering the North's three-stage rocket from last month.
But that launch too was less than perfect, with technicians during the final days before liftoff deciding to trim off four feet of rocket-motor nozzle extensions with metal shears to address an unexpected problem with cracking.
Eventually the company is hoping to use its research to create orbiting systems that can fling other satellites into deep space, but seeing how the last Dnepr rocket crashed and burned on liftoff in 2006, Team Tether is probably best off taking this endeavor one step at a time.
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