Space Shuttle is launched at night

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Flashes of flame from the space shuttle Discovery lit up the sky yesterday as the space shuttle lifted off the launch pad for the first nighttime launching in four years.

The shuttle’s seven astronauts are on a mission to rewire the international space station, one leg of a three-year effort to finish construction on the station before shuttles are retired in 2010.

The illumination from the shuttle turned night into day for the spectators at the Kennedy Space Center. A cloudy sky with blustery winds earlier in the day gave way to clear skies and a gentle breeze at launching time.

Low clouds forced the space agency to scrub an attempt Thursday night during a countdown that ran down to the wire. Managers decided not to try again Friday because the forecast looked even worse.

‘‘Forty-eight hours makes a tremendous difference,’’ the launch director, Mike Leinbach, told the Discovery crew.

Commander Mark Polansky responded, ‘‘We look forward to lighting up the night sky.’’

Eight minutes into the flight, the shuttle successfully attained orbit.

During their 12-day mission, Discovery’s crew will rewire the space station, deliver an $11 million addition to the space lab and bring home one of the space station’s three crew members, German astronaut Thomas Reiter of the European Space Agency.

A US astronaut, Sunita Williams, a former resident of Needham, Mass., will replace Reiter, will stay aboard the space station for six months.

Williams, a 1983 graduate of Needham High School, plans to write to students in a Needham elementary school every Friday while in space. Bonnie and Deepak Pandya, her parents, live in Falmouth.

Williams, 41, a Navy commander, is a graduate of the Naval Academy and the Florida Institute of Technology. She said she wanted to take part in the long-duration mission to help learn what happens to the body and how materials work in space.

A mission specialist, Williams will help operate the space station’s robotic arm and join in a spacewalk to rewire the space lab.

Polansky is leading the crew, which also includes Sweden’s first astronaut, Christer Fuglesang, along with pilot William A. Oefelein, flight engineer Robert L. Curbeam, and mission specialists Nicholas Patrick and Joan Higginbotham.

Discovery’s astronauts ate a preflight meal, suited up in their orange spacesuits, then boarded a van for the trip to the launch pad.

Williams made muscle poses for the camera while her crew mates finished putting on the spacesuits. Before boarding the shuttle, she held up a sign that read, ‘‘Go Red Sox. Go Pats. Go for launch.’’

Discovery’s crew has the least cumulative spaceflight experience in eight years. Five of the astronauts, including Williams, have never flown in a shuttle before. The last time a shuttle mission had five rookies was a Columbia crew that flew in April 1998.

Unusually cold weather at the Kennedy Space Center caused delays in draining fuel from the shuttle’s external tank after Thursday night’s attempt, which then caused a two-hour postponement in fueling for yesterday’s launch.