14 DAY TRIAL // It's official! The space shuttle Atlantis is now in Earth's orbit and is currently tracking down the Hubble Space Telescope. The blast-off went on with just two minor glitches, but they had no impact on the spacecraft's main systems, so engineers at NASA did not abort the mission again. The lift-off took place on Monday, May 11th, at 2.01 pm EDT (1801 GMT), from the Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39 A. By now, astronauts aboard the shuttle have already completed their first day in space, and are getting ready for the Wednesday capture of the aging space telescope.
During the launching sequence, engineers detected two small problems, one related to a malfunctioning circuit breaker, and the other to a bad sensor. The latter caused a number of alarms during lift-off, but the shuttle was never in any real danger, experts at the space agency ensure. As soon as the orbiter sees and traps the telescope to its docking bays, repairs will immediately begin, and they will last for about seven days. This only gives the seven astronauts aboard the shuttle two days to rest, while the other five will be spent working in what NASA has termed the most complex mission to space yet.
A number of instruments will be added to the space telescope, including a new camera and a spectrograph, while other devices already on board will be upgraded or repaired as well. Hubble will also receive a new insulating layer, and will have its gyroscopes and batteries replaced. Engineers at NASA are hopeful that this measure will extend the observatory's life by at least another five years, maybe even more. The astronauts who will perform the spacewalks have to get it done as fast and as correctly as possible, as the STS-125 mission is the last shuttle flight ever that is not intended for contributing to the construction of the International Space Station (ISS).
The American space agency still has a number of seven missions planned for its three-shuttle fleet, but all of them are scheduled to deliver one component or the other to the ISS. Once this objective is complete, the fleet will be retired, although recent developments hint at the fact that the decision may no longer be 100 percent certain. Monday's lift-off is the 30th flight for Atlantis and the agency's 126th shuttle mission. It is also the fifth and final repair mission to the Hubble Space Telescope.