Space shuttle Atlantis' crew awoke today to “Stick Shifts and Safety Belts” by Cake at 4:31 a.m. EDT. The song was played for Mission Specialist Drew Feustel.
During the STS-125 mission's fourth day, astronauts Grunsfeld and Feustel are set to make the first of five Hubble servicing spacewalks. Scheduled to begin work at 8:16 a.m. EDT.
The spacewalkers will remove Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 and replace it with the new Wide Field Camera 3, which will allow Hubble to capture a wide range of images from ultraviolet to near-infrared wavelengths. They also will replace a failed science data processing computer that delayed Atlantis' launch last October and install a mechanism for a spacecraft to capture Hubble for de-orbit at the end of its life. The spacewalk is set to last six and a half hours.
HUBBLE CAPTURED
Using the shuttle's robotic arm STS-125 Mission Specialist Megan McArthur grappled the Hubble Space Telescope at 12:14 p.m. CDT Wednesday. McArthur then maneuvered the telescope onto a Flight Support System maintenance platform in Atlantis’ payload bay.
The stage is set for five spacewalks in as many days to repair and update instruments, extending Hubble's lifespan through 2014.
Astronauts John Grunsfeld and Drew Feustel conducted a final review of plans for the first spacewalk with the help of fellow spacewalkers Mike Good and Mike Massimino, and the rest of the crew. They also checked out all of the tools necessary for the mission’s spacewalks.
Mission managers declared Atlantis’ thermal protection tiles safe for reentry, but continue to examine the imagery from Tuesday’s inspection of the reinforced carbon carbon on the shuttle’s nose cap and wing leading edges.
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Check out The Mission Summary
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