Atlantis off to Hubble

At 1:00 yesterday afternoon, the space shuttle Atlantic (STS 125) successfully lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Atlantis is carrying a crew of 7 astronauts on an 11 day mission to service and add equipment to the Hubble Space Telescope. This will be the last shuttle mission to Hubble, since NASA will be retiring the fleet of spacecraft next year.

Here's video of the launch. For reasons that I plan on discussing later, a shuttle launch always fills me with a sense of awe. (BTW...I recommend clicking on the "HD" button that comes up once the video is playing...very cool.)

The crew spent their first full day in space today inspecting Atlantis's heat shields for any damage that might have occurred during liftoff. That inspection turned up a few minor dings which the experts at NASA will have to analyze. They are not, at this point, expected to cause a problem with the shuttle's flight or re-entry.

Atlantis is expect to rendezvous with Hubble tomorrow morning. Once the shuttle has secured the telescope, the crew will spend the rest of the mission completing 5 separate spacewalks to install the new equipment.