News From Space!

Wednesday will see Atlantis rendezvous with HST at 7:41AM EDT and pluck it from its orbit, around 5½ hours later. Meanwhile, engineers continue to analyze damage to the orbiter's heat shield.  NASA reports:

Shuttle Crew to Grapple Telescope

Image above: Commander Scott Altman sits on the flight deck of space shuttle Atlantis. Photo credit: NASA TV

Space shuttle Atlantis will meet up with the Hubble Space Telescope today. The actual grapple of the telescope using the shuttle’s robotic arm is scheduled for 12:54 p.m. EDT as Atlantis soars 340 statute miles above the northeast coast of Madagascar. The telescope will be latched to a high-tech, “lazy Susan” device known as the Flight Support System for the duration of the servicing work.

The STS-125 crew will perform five spacewalks to refurbish, restore and renew the Hubble Space Telescope. The first spacewalk is scheduled for Thursday.

Engineers continue to examine the images captured during Tuesday’s inspection of Atlantis’ thermal protection system and exterior surfaces. During that inspection, mission managers noted one area of damage on the forward part of the spacecraft where the wing blends into the fuselage. Initially it appears to be very minor and of no concern for the mission, and the flight team notified the crew late Tuesday that no focused inspection of that particular area is necessary.

› View the Launch of Atlantis in High Definition (HD)

STS-125 Additional Resources
› Mission Summary (407KB PDF)
› Press Kit (4.8MB PDF)
› Meet the Crew
› Learn About the Mission

Flight Day 2 pics and Launch videos are up at the JSC Gallery. Launch pics and video at KSC. More launch pics at Sentinel and FlaToday. Status Report #4 here. Discussion at NSF. Check the links at right for play-by-play and NASA TV.