 At the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, this is Shuttle Launch Control at T-minus three hours and holding. We are now in the final five and one-half hours of the countdown for the launch of the Space Shuttle Atlantis on the second mission to dock with the Russian Mir space station at T-minus three hours and holding. This is Shuttle Launch Control and it's taken somewhat longer than usual to fill the liquid oxygen tank today since we had a brief failure of the liquid oxygen pump at the launch pad at the storage tank. Here we are now in the dining room at the crew quarters where we see the five STS-74 crew members and at the end of the table is mission specialist Bill MacArthur, Canadian astronaut and mission specialist Chris Hatfield, the commander of our mission Ken Cameron, mission specialist and flight engineer Jerry Ross and at the far end of the table our pilot Jim Halsell. And after lunch they'll go for a briefing on the weather outlook of a great interest to them this morning and then to the crew suit up room to don their launch and entry suits. This is Shuttle Launch Control at T-minus three hours and holding, where we are now in the suit-it room and we see our commander Ken Cameron going across the room and our pilot Jim Halsell undergoing their final suit up and check out of their helmet, pressurization checks, mission specialist Chris Hatfield who will be operating the remote manipulator arm during this flight going across the room and we see Bill MacArthur finishing his suit up activities. And this should be Jerry Ross indeed. These launch and entry suits are not very comfortable but they're certainly functional, very visible. Temperature now at the launch pad at 58 degrees picking up the count now at three, two, one, T-minus three hours and counting. This is Shuttle Launch Control at T-minus two hours, 54 minutes, 55 seconds and counting. And the STS-74 astronauts now are leaving the suit up room headed for the elevator going from the third floor of the operations and checkout building down to the awaiting astronaut transfer van where the closeout crew is wetting them. We hope to have at least one side available to us. This is Shuttle Launch Control at T-minus two hours, 31 minutes, 43 seconds and counting. In the white room at the pad we see our commander Ken Cameron. Seeing now pilot Jim Halsell being prepared for his entry into Atlantis. This is Shuttle Launch Control at T-minus two hours, 17 minutes, 20 seconds and counting. Halsell now boarding Atlantis and astronaut Bill MacArthur is now being assisted with his launch and entry suit and his helmet and in the white room we see Canadian astronaut mission specialist Chris Hadfield finishing his suit up and being assisted by the closeout crew. Atlantis Houston good morning Ken seems like we just did this. Yeah good morning Blaine it seems like days have flew over again but this is the last time I feel pretty good about the situation I hope it's still looking good over there. Yeah this little guy is just hanging around out there but I think we can hopefully get those things to work out and get you guys on your way today we'll look forward to a good lunch. Okay thanks for talking to you. Seeing now mission specialist Sherry Ross suiting up he'll be the last aboard and he's our flight engineer so on both Ascent and Descent he'll be sitting in the aft center seat. And CDR on behalf of the launch team we hope the day is a day for you and we hope you have a good ride up the mirror. Thank you very much for all the work sorry I had to do this twice but I think we're ready now and everything looks good we sure appreciate all the effort. The BFS transit stop is complete. TPS is ready for the BFS transit stop for a while. Copy thank you. CDR OTC. CDR is ready. Clear past fault sub and take BFS stop for your check. And MMT launch breakfast. Jim the MMT is working the relationship cleared to launch. Copy that. And Lannis looks like we got everything lined up ready for you guys to go so have a good mission and we'll see you back in about eight days. Roger that. Thanks very much sir we sure appreciate the help. And NDD launch tractor you have a clearance launch. NDD compass thank you. The flight controls have been tested and standing by now to gimbal the main engines. We see the speed brake being cycled here and now the main engines are assembling or being moved through their operational latitudes. T-minus three minutes. TLS is going for ET L02 pressure station. Liquid oxygen tank not being pressurized. Weather officer Ed Purcellak just has passed the word that they are now officially green at the path. And verify no unexpected errors. And the gaseous oxygen vent hood. Is the gox beanie cap now being retracted. Copy. Ground launch sequencer will make a check at T-minus 37 seconds to make sure that it's in the fully retracted position. Flight cleared OTT closing lock devices and initiate O02 slow. And looks like the second time with the charm. Have good flight. Roger that. Thank you. And that's complete. TLS is going for ET L02 pressure station. That was orbiter test conductor Mike Key. I'm Mike Keyed-Martin wishing the crew a good flight. T-minus one minute 30 seconds. Liquid hydrogen tank now at flight pressure. T-minus one minute. Ground launch sequencer now verifying the main engines are ready for ignition. Heaters around the joints of the solid rocket boosters are being turned off. Sound suppression water system is being armed. Flight data recorder is now recording. Bill and drain valves on the external tank are closed. Standing by for the handoff to the orbiter's computers. And the handoff has been completed. Atlantis' computer is now controlling. Sound suppression water system activated. Ten, nine, eight, seven. Go for main engine start. Five, four, three, two, one. And liftoff of space shuttle Atlantis with the Russian docking module, the threshold for world cooperation in space. From the launch pad, two nautical miles. Let's go and throttle up. Roger, go and throttle up. Atlantis' three main engines are now back at full throttle. Atlantis altitude 12 miles, nine miles downrange from the launch pad. Atlantis is now traveling 2,400 miles per hour. One minute 42nd since launch. Atlantis has already burned more than 2.25 million pounds of propellant and weighs less than half of what it did at liftoff. Flight controllers are now standing by for burnouts in jettison of the twin-solid rocket booster first stage. Booster officer confirms a good separation of the twin-solid rockets. There's some holes in it. It was kind of musk-colored. You're riding up the bulkhead as if it was part of the mechanism. And then once we got the door mostly open, we saw that it was floating free. Copy, and you've captured some good images. Go back down again for you if you like. Yes, I think we saw what we needed.