The Space Shuttle Discovery spews clouds of exhaust as it lifts off from Launch Pad 39B on the mission STS-95.

Against a curtain of blue sky, the Space Shuttle Discovery spews clouds of exhaust as it lifts off from Launch Pad 39B at 2:19 p.m. EST Oct. 29 on the 9-day mission STS-95. On board Discovery are Mission Commander Curtis L. Brown Jr., Pilot Steven W. Lindsey, Payload Specialist Chiaki Mukai, (M.D., Ph.D.), with the National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA), Payload Specialist John H. Glenn Jr., senator from Ohio, Mission Specialist Stephen K. Robinson, Mission Specialist Pedro Duque of Spain, representing the European Space Agency (ESA), and Mission Specialist Scott E. Parazynski. The STS-95 mission includes research payloads such as the Spartan solar-observing deployable spacecraft, the Hubble Space Telescope Orbital Systems Test Platform, the International Extreme Ultraviolet Hitchhiker, as well as the SPACEHAB single module with experiments on space flight and the aging process. Discovery is expected to return to KSC at 11:49 a.m. EST on Nov. 7