NASA: Weather Looks Good for Monday Space Shuttle Launch (STS-125

Final preparations are under way for NASA's planned launch next week of the space shuttle Atlantis to upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope.

The weather looks promising for the shuttle's planned liftoff May 11 at 2:01 p.m. EDT (1802 GMT) from the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Cape Canaveral, Fla.

Shuttle weather officer Kathy Winters predicted an 80 percent chance of favorable weather that day, with a small risk of clouds or showers that could prevent a launch. If the shuttle is unable to lift off Monday, NASA can try again May 12 and May 13, though there is only a 60 percent chance of favorable weather those days.

"Overall for launch weather here at KSC, it looks best on the first day and then the weather starts to deteriorate," Winters said today during a briefing.

Atlantis is standing ready at Launch Pad 39A, where ground crews are making final checks and preparations of its payload — a cache of new and replacement hardware and instruments to install on Hubble.

"Currently we're just in the final stages of payload closeouts in final preparation for payload bay door closure this afternoon," said shuttle payload manager Debbie Hahn. "Basically we're in great posture for this launch attempt."

The 19-year-old Hubble Space Telescope is losing steam. Though it is still in use by scientists, it only has one working instrument remaining onboard. The new equipment set to be installed should give it a much needed boost in longevity and ability to collect data.

Mission preview: One last shuttle visit to Hubble
WILLIAM HARWOOD

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts125/090507preview/

NASA’s fifth and final mission to service and upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope will add one of the most dramatic chapters yet to an ongoing saga that reads like “The Perils of Pauline.” Or an over-the-top Hollywood screenplay about a scientific superstar repeatedly rescued from the brink of disaster.

“I don’t think anybody except Arthur C. Clarke could have crafted such a great story,” said astronomer-astronaut John Grunsfeld, the mission’s lead spacewalker. “If it were just about Hubble, it would be a great story. But when you look about the science and the discoveries scientists have made using Hubble, then it just becomes an unbelievable story.

“I’m relatively glib in saying Hubble is perhaps the most important and productive scientific instrument ever created by humans. Only history will tell, but it’s a truly remarkable story.”

Grunsfeld, commander Scott Altman, pilot Gregory C. Johnson, robot arm operator Megan McArthur and fellow spacewalkers Michael Massimino, Andrew Feustel and Michael Good are scheduled for launch aboard shuttle Atlantis on May 11 at 2:01:49 p.m. It will be the second Hubble visit in a row for Altman and Massimino and the third for Grunsfeld. The rest are shuttle rookies.

Launch originally was scheduled for last Oct. 14, but just three weeks before takeoff a critical circuit in the telescope’s science instrument data system malfunctioned. To restore full redundancy, NASA managers decided to delay the servicing mission to give engineers time to check out and certify a flight spare that had been used for ground testing. The replacement computer was delivered to the Kennedy Space Center on March 30, setting the stage for launch.

Hoping to extend Hubble’s life well into the next decade, the four spacewalkers, working in two-man teams, plan five back-to-back excursions to install six new stabilizing gyroscopes, six new nickel-hydrogen battery packs, the new data computer and two new instruments, the $126 million Wide Field Camera 3 and the $81 million Cosmic Origins Spectrograph. Like all modern Hubble instruments, both are equipped with corrective optics to counteract the spherical aberration that prevents Hubble’s 94.5-inch mirror from achieving a sharp focus.

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