NASA managers completed a review Thursday, April 30, of space shuttle Atlantis' readiness for flight and selected an official launch date for the STS-125 mission to upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope.
Commander Scott Altman and his six crewmates are scheduled to lift off at 2:01 p.m. EDT, May 11, from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. He will be joined on the mission by Pilot Gregory C. Johnson and Mission Specialists Andrew Feustel, Michael Good, John Grunsfeld, KC5ZTF (photo), Megan McArthur and Mike Massimino. The spacewalkers are Feustel, Good, Grunsfeld and Massimino. McArthur is the flight engineer and lead for robotic arm operations.
Atlantis' 11-day mission will include five spacewalks to refurbish Hubble with state-of-the-art science instruments. When the astronauts have finished all of their tasks, they will use the robotic arm to release the telescope, and Goddard Space Center will issue the commands to bring the telescope back into operation.
Before Hubble's science mission can resume, the telescope will undergo a several-month-long testing and calibrating period. The first new images from the telescope will be released in mid-2009. Restored and updated, Hubble will continue on its journey around the Earth, its new components merging seamlessly with the old ...its lifetime extended through at least 2014. (Source: NASA.)
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