The 66th Space Shuttle flight begins with a nearly ontime liftoff of Space Shuttle Mission STS-66 into clear Florida skies. The orbiter Atlantis returned to space after an approximately two year absence with a liftoff from Launch Pad 39B at 11:59:43 a.m. EST. Primary payloads for the last Shuttle flight of 1994 include the Atmospheric Laboratory for Applications and Science and the German built Cryogenic Infrared Spectrometers and Telescopes for the Atmosphere Shuttle Pallet Satellite which will be deployed and later retrieved during the mission.