Atlantis Makes Final Shuttle Mission to Hubble Space Telescope

For 19 years the Hubble Space Telescope has snapped over 570,000 images of 29,000 celestial objects, providing humanity with a clear window to the cosmos. Hubble and its 4 previous successful service missions have been one of the greatest accomplishments of NASA since the Apollo Moon missions. Its greatest discoveries include: determining the age of the universe (13.7 billion years), providing evidence that the expansion rate of the universe is accelerating due to 'dark energy,' confirming all major galaxies have black holes at their center, and detecting the first ever organic molecules on a planet orbiting another star. This week, the 5th and final mission to service Hubble will seek to enhance the telescope's capabilities and extend its life for at least another 5 years. Atlantis STS-125 will take off from Cape Canaveral FL on May 11 carrying a 7-person crew and over 10,400 kg of hardware for an 11-day mission to the Earth-orbiting observatory. The crew is comprised of Commander Scott Altman, Pilot Gregory Johnson, and Mission Specialists Michael Good, Megan McArthur, John Grunsfeld, Mike Massimino and Andrew Feustel. 5 spacewalks are planned to install new instruments, such as the Wide Field Camera 3 and the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph, and to repair or replace existing systems, like the failed science data processing computer that delayed the mission from last Oct. Hubble's new advanced technology will improve the 11.3 metric ton telescope's discovery power by 10 to 70 times, and ensure its unprecedented scientific capability well into the next decade. (Credit: NASA)