Shuttle blasts off on Hubble mission
— -- The Hubble Space Telescope is about to get its sharpest view yet of the cosmos after Monday's launch of the final space shuttle mission to refurbish it.
Shuttle Atlantis, a crew of seven astronauts aboard, roared off the launch pad in Cape Canaveral at 2:01 p.m. ET. The spacecraft's cargo hold carries instruments that will increase Hubble's powers of observation by up to 90 times. The shuttle also carries spare parts to help extend the life of the 19-year-old telescope to 2014 or later.
The sight of Atlantis blasting off was "bittersweet," said Edward Weiler, NASA's top science official. "I'm happy to see the launch, but I'm sad knowing it's the last shuttle repair mission to the Hubble Space Telescope."
NASA plans to retire the shuttle in 2010, leaving no way to send astronauts back to the Hubble for any further repair work.
Tuesday, Atlantis' crew will perform an arduous inspection of their spacecraft for damage done by launch debris. It is scheduled to last 9½ hours, rather than the normal seven to eight hours.
The reason lies with the Atlantis's destination. Most shuttle flights head to the International Space Station, where the station crews helps inspect the shuttle's heat shield.
On a trip to Hubble, the shuttle doesn't get near the station, so the survey by the shuttle crew has been lengthened.
Other key events:
• On Wednesday, Atlantis' robotic arm grabs the Hubble and sets it in the shuttle's cargo bay.
• On Thursday, two astronauts perform the first of five spacewalks in five days to upgrade and repair the Hubble.
This fifth trip to Hubble has been postponed repeatedly since its original launch date in 2002. Last year, NASA delayed the mission four times: once because of delays to an earlier shuttle launch, once because of a hurricane that interrupted the astronauts' training, once because of production problems at the factory that makes the shuttle's fuel tank and once because a critical component on Hubble failed.
The failure of the Hubble component delayed the mission for seven months while engineers worked on a replacement for the space shuttle crew to install.
