spacetoday.net: Atlantis rolled out to pad for Hubble mission

Atlantis rolled out to pad for Hubble mission

Posted: Wed, Apr 1, 2009, 7:48 AM ET (1148 GMT)
STS-125: rollout to pad on March 31 2009 (NASA/KSC)

NASA rolled the space shuttle Atlantis to its launch pad Tuesday for a long-delayed mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. Atlantis, attached to its external tank and solid rocket boosters, arrived at pad 39A at 9:10 am EDT (1310 GMT) Tuesday, a little over six hours after leaving the Vehicle Assembly Building. Atlantis is scheduled to launch on May 12 on mission STS-125, the fifth and final Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission. The mission was scheduled for last fall but postponed after a Command and Data Handling Unit on the telescope failed just weeks before the scheduled launch. Astronauts will replace that unit and perform other upgrades that will keep the telescope operational until 2014 or later.