Monday, May 11, 2009

Final Hubble Servicing Mission launches today

From the mission website:
Final preparations are underway for the exciting and challenging mission to Hubble. Liftoff is scheduled for May 11 at 2:01 p.m. EDT, and the countdown clock will start at 4 p.m. Friday.

You can watch the prelaunch activities and the mission live on the web from NASA TV. The coverage includes a web cast the day before the launch at 12:30 EDT, news conferences and status briefings.


+ View NASA TV schedule

Visit the official mission site here: NASA - Servicing Mission 4


This will be the last Hubble servicing mission. After this, Hubble will be as good as it's ever going to get! Hubble has been an incredible success, supplying amazing, remarkable images since the first Servicing Mission corrected the original errors in the optics. Subsequent servicing missions - sometimes wrongly called "repair" missions - have both replaced critical components and provided important upgrades that have greatly extended the capabilities of the Hubble Space Telescope. It would be great if everyone could tune out the reality shows and other assorted offal that fill our idiot boxes and briefly watch some amazing work get done this week in one of the most challenging workplaces ever - outer space!


To see an interactive overview of this mission, go here: STS-125 - The Final Shuttle Mission to the Hubble Telescope.

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