As I type this we are about  1hrs 25mins from the launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis on mission STS-125 to service the Hubble Space Telescope.  The launch is due at  7:01pm our time today (Monday).

This is one of the very rare times, and possibly the last ever time we will see two shuttles rolled out onto the pads at the same time.   Why?

After the Columbia accident, where the shuttle broke apart and burnt up during re-entry, it’s Nasa policy that any mission must have a safe haven, where the Crew can move to should the shuttle be found to be damaged and unable to cope with re-entry.  Usually this is the International space station, but we aren’t going there on this mission, we are going to the Hubble, so the Atlantis will be all alone out there.  This is why Endeavour is sat their waiting, It’s a life boat in case anything goes wrong.

This could be the final flight of Space Shuttle Atlantis, it is due to be decommissioned after this flight. Atlantis has completed 29 flights, spent 220.40-days in space, completed 3,468 orbits, and flown 89,908,732 nautical miles (166,510,972 km) in total, as of September 2006. Among the five Space Shuttles flown in space, Atlantis has conducted a subsequent mission in the shortest time after the previous mission when it launched in November, 1985, only 50 days after its previous mission (from Wikipedia).  However, the Ares (big Saturn 5 like rocket – due to replace the Shuttles in 2012) test flights due to take place this year have been postponed due to “budget reviews” so the old shuttles may still have some life and a few more missions left in them yet.  (there are major parts of the shuttle Atlantis flying today that we rated for a 10 year life span, which are now 22 years old!)

Good luck Atlantis!

You can watch the flight live on Nasa TV or if you want higher quality streams you can try the links on my blog.

About the Hubble space telescope.

The shuttle fleet aren’t the only ones feeling their age.  The Hubble space telescope was launched in April 1990, nearly 20 years ago.  It was hugely expensive and very ambitious.  The launch was successful, but when it was turned on and pointed at the stars for the first time, it was found that everything was blurred and out of focus.  Considering the mission costs, this was a stunning disaster.

Fortunately, the Hubble was designed to be repaired and upgraded in space, so a mission was put together to fit corrective optics and since then the HST has been responsible for some of the most important space based science ever done, despite its huge cost, it has earned its money many times over.

Over the next 11 days there will be five back to back space walks to replace instruments and refill the propellant tanks, there will even be some work done on circuit board level which has never been attempted before.  Atlantis is due to land on the 22nd (a week on Friday) at about 15:41.

You can be amazed by the science Hubble has done, you can be shocked at the cost of the operation and maintenance, but it’s the outstanding beauty of its images and its ability to connect us to the universe that which will be its long lasting legacy.