spacetoday.net: Countdown begins for shuttle launch

Posted: Sun, May 10, 2009, 11:24 AM ET (1524 GMT)

The countdown for the last shuttle mission to the Hubble Space Telescope started on Friday, and mission managers said prospects were good for a Monday launch. The countdown began at 4 pm EDT (2000 GMT) Friday for the launch of shuttle Atlantis on mission STS-125 at 2:01 pm EDT (1801 GMT) Monday. Mission managers said Saturday that countdown preparations were going well, and that there was an 80 percent chance of acceptable weather for the launch, the main concern being possible clouds and rain at a trans-Atlantic abort landing site in Spain. STS-125 is the fifth and final servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope, with several spacewalks planned to replace instruments and other spacecraft components to allow the spacecraft to continue observations for several more years.