Sunday, May 10, 2009

Atlantis ready to launch tomorrow

The shuttle program has been extended a bit longer. Today they announced that there is a "a 90 percent chance to launch Atlantis at 2:01 p.m. EDT tomorrow". This mission is to repair the Hubble Space Telescope.

During the 11-day mission's five spacewalks, astronauts will install two new instruments, repair two inactive ones and perform the component replacements that will keep the telescope functioning into at least 2014.

In addition to the originally scheduled work, Atlantis also will carry a replacement Science Instrument Command and Data Handling Unit for Hubble. Astronauts will install the unit on the telescope, removing the one that stopped working on Sept. 27, 2008, delaying the servicing mission until the replacement was ready.

No comments: