Repairing Hubble

Atlantis blasted off Monday for the Hubble Space Telescope on the most delicate and dangerous repair job ever in orbit. This is a mission so dangerous that for the first time a second shuttle stands ready to rescue the seven astronauts if something goes wrong. It will be the last visit to the aging observatory. The work will include five spacewalks in a high orbit strewn with space junk. The astronauts will try to fix equipment that was never designed to be fixed with in space. They will not have a choice of using the international space station as a safe harbor in a crisis. The improvements will extend the life of one of the space program's proudest achievements. I have full confidence that they'll pull off a success and if they do, we'll have a Hubble for at least five, six, eight years more. That's what Ed Weiler said. He is NASA's science mission chief. The crew will replace Hubble's batteries and gyroscopes. They will also install two cameras and try fixing two broken science instruments. Mission Control wasted no time informing the astronauts that an early look at the launch video had uncovered nothing of concern. Some debris was spotted coming off the fuel tank. There is nothing that appeared to strike Atlantis. This is all I found out and I think it's very interesting.