May 11, 2009 5:58 pm US/Eastern
Shuttle Atlantis Blasts Off On Last Hubble Mission
Reporting
Adam May
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (WJZ/AP) ―
-
-
Space shuttle Atlantis is on its way to the Hubble Space Telescope.
The crew of the space shuttle Atlantis is on its way to the Hubble for a final repair mission.
Adam May reports this trip has significance to hundreds of people here in Maryland who helped build, repair and maintain the revolutionary telescope.
Many of those people watched the launch at Goddard Space Center.
Hubble has been in service now for almost two decades, and it's years overdue for a servicing mission. Luckily, Monday's launch was perfect.
Atlantis fired up on the pad. Spectators watched from the Goddard Space Center.
The 12-day mission has one major purpose -- a final visit to the Hubble Space Telescope.
Astronauts will be installing and repairing equipment hoping to keep Hubble running for another five years.
NASA engineer Lee Feinberg has been on that project since the beginning.
"I think what it's done more than anything is capture the public's imagination, both because of the images it has brought down and both because of the story behind Hubble, how we're able to go up and repair it. It's sort of this great American story of you know, having a problem and sticking with it and fixing it," said Feinberg.
Once Hubble is no longer in service, it will be replaced by the James Webb Telescope. It is a lot more powerful and scheduled to launch hopefully by the year 2013.
"You step back and you think, huh this is pretty neat to be working on something like this," said Paul Geithner, NASA engineer.
Geithner is developing the new telescope.
"Its primary job is to see the very first stars and the very first galaxies that formed after the big bang, only a fraction of the time after the whole ancient universe," said Geithner.
Looking back 13.7 billion years and witnessing Americans work on that sparked patriotism in some watching the launch.
"It's everything good that we are as a nation," said a spectator.
Astronauts will have some challenges while they're up in orbit. There is so much junk left over in orbit from previous missions that there is a 1 in 220 chance of a collision.
The space shuttle Atlantis is scheduled to arrive at the orbiting observatory Wednesday.
(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
Jewish Celebrities
CBS News Interactive: About The Space Shuttles
Click to enlarge
Stumble It!
