Columbia Servicing Mission 3B Liftoff

Billows of smoke and steam flow over the launch pad as Space Shuttle Columbia leaps into space on mission STS-109. Liftoff occurred at 5:22:02:08 a.m. CST (11:22:02:08 GMT) on March 1, 2002. This was the 27th flight of the vehicle and 108th in the history of the Shuttle program. The goal of mission STS-109 was the maintenance and upgrade of the Hubble Space Telescope, to be carried out in five spacewalks.