NASA: Atlantis ready and waiting for Tuesday rollout

by Stevie Smith - Mar 26 2009, 16:00

With the space shuttle Discovery on its way back to Earth after a successful mission to install solar arrays aboard the International Space Station, NASA has confirmed that space shuttle Atlantis is on track ahead of a Tuesday launch pad move.

Expected to roll out to Launch Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the Atlantis orbiter is presently scheduled to blast off on May 12 to perform important maintenance work to NASA’s long-serving Hubble Space Telescope.

Once safely in orbit beside Hubble, the crew of seven aboard Atlantis will carry out a total of five spacewalks, install two new instruments, perform repairs on malfunctioning systems, and replace various other components.

May’s mission (STS-125) will be the final time manned maintenance is dispatched to Hubble, although the work will leave the telescope with an extended operational lifespan stretching to at least 2014. 

Already fully assembled and waiting within Kennedy’s Vehicle Assembly Building, Atlantis, its external fuel tank and twin solid rocket boosters are set to emerge at 00:01 EDT Tuesday morning atop a crawler-transporter.

The 3.4-mile journey to Launch Pad 39A will take around six hours to complete due to a crawl speed of less than one mile per hour.

Unforeseen technical and/or weather-related delays not withstanding, NASA Television will provide live coverage of the event from 07:00 on Tuesday, with video highlights also available for viewing on NASA TV Video File.

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