KENNEDY SPACE CENTER - NASA managers completed the Flight Readiness Review of space shuttle Atlantis' launch to service and upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope and selected an official launch date for the STS-125 mission. Commander Scott Altman and his six crewmates are scheduled to lift off at 2:01 p.m. EDT, May 11, from Launch Complex 39-A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
VIDEO: POST_FLIGHT READINESS REVIEW BRIEFING Today's prelaunch meeting reviewed data from STS-119, which found nothing of concern that could delay Atlantis' liftoff. "The teams were very thorough; we did a very detailed review, going through everything. I think the fact that the review was a little shorter than some of our reviews was just a tribute to how well the last flight was, " said NASA's Associate Administrator for Space Operations Bill Gerstenmeier during a press conference following today's review. "(It was a ) very smooth FRR (Flight Readiness Review). It could not have gone any smoother," echoed shuttle Program Manager John Shannon. "There were no dissenting opinions." Commander Altman will be joined on the mission by Pilot Gregory C. Johnson and Mission Specialists Andrew Feustel, Michael Good, John Grunsfeld, Megan McArthur and Mike Massimino. The spacewalkers are Feustel, Good, Grunsfeld and Massimino. McArthur is the flight engineer and lead for robotic arm operations. The mission of Atlantis is unique compared to all other shuttle mission in the post-Columbia era in that it doesn't include docking with the International Space Station. Instead, the shuttle will rendezvous with the Hubble Space Telescope for the last time before the fleet is retired next year. The shuttle's 11-day mission includes five spacewalks to install new science instruments and make repairs to the telescope that will enable the observatory to continue operating through at least 2013. "This mission will not only improve the capability of the telescope with the installation of two brand new instruments and the repair of existing instruments, but it will extend the operational capability of the observatory," said Michael Luther, NASA Deputy Associate Administrator for Programs in the Science Mission Directorate. "With the improvements and upgrades to selected subsystems of the spacecraft. This extension into the middle of the next decade will then allow us at NASA to put on orbit the next generation of this technology, the James Webb Space Telescope." STS-127 promises to be the most challenging Hubble servicing mission to date. completing all the tasks on the telescope as well as accommodating detailed robotic inspections of the Atlantis' heat shield will require five back-to-back EVA's with very little margin in the timeline. "They're using every minute of this mission," Gerstenmeier remarked. "If I look at the timeline and I look at what's happening, every minute of this mission has got something that's important for the telescope or it's important for the shuttle operations and it's a real tribute to this team that they were able to pull all this together and get such an intricate timeline together with a little bit of reserve in there but not very much reserve at all. And the teams are ready. They're ready to go what they need to go do. The vehicles (ed: Atlantis and rescue shuttle Endeavour) look like they're in good shape." Several years in planning, the mission to Hubble is different than any shuttle mission NASA has conducted since prior to the Columbia accident, involving the rendezvous and grappling of a free-flying spacecraft with the shuttle's robot arm. The type of tasks the astronauts will carry out is also different than typically seen on a space station assembly flight with 116 new tools having been developed specifically to service the orbiting observatory. "This is a different mission for us than we're used to," said Gerstenmeier. "The back to back EVA's are a different activity. You know, we typically have eva's but they're not back to back, 5 of them. And also if you look at the type of eva tasks, if you look at the press kits and you look at the videos, the tasks are also a little bit different than space station. They're much more intricate inside the space telescope. They're pulling some cards out; they're doing more detailed kind of work, lots of new tool development for the Hubble to actually service it." Meanwhile, space shuttle Endeavour sits on pad B waiting on standby in case Atlantis is damaged on orbit and a rescue mission is required to return the crew to Earth. Once Atlantis is in orbit, the launch team could move Endeavour to launch pad A (pad B can no longer support shuttle launches) and launch a rescue mission, designated STS-400, within approximately three to seven days. After Atlantis' mission ends, Endeavour's role will switch to the next mission, STS-127, a flight to the space station that will deliver the final component of the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency's Kibo research laboratory. "Assuming we don't need the rescue mission, then we'll take Endeavour over to pad A at the end of May, May the 29th actually, and set up for a launch on STS-127 on June 13th," said NASA shuttle Launch Director Mike Leinbach. In between the two shuttle missions, a Russian Soyuz spacecraft will depart for the space station and three new residents will join the current three-person Expedition 19 to mark the beginning of a permanent six-person crew size on the orbiting complex. (The Spacearium / Space Media Corporation)
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