Space Shuttle Atlantis Moves to Launch Pad

NASA?s space shuttle Atlantis moved out to its Florida launch pad Thursday to prepare for one last flight to the Hubble Space Telescope next month after weather concerns related to Tropical Storm Hanna eased at the seaside spaceport.

Rolling slow and steady atop an Apollo-era carrier vehicle, Atlantis headed for its Pad 39A launch site at NASA?s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Cape Canaveral, Fla., following several days of delay due to Hanna. But by early this morning, the storm?s predicted path carried it far enough off shore to allow the shuttle?s move.

?It?s going very well,? NASA spokesperson Candrea Thomas told SPACE.com from the spaceport.

NASA officials delayed Atlantis? move this week to avoid the possibility of high winds and rain from Tropical Storm Hanna. But while that storm is expected to have little impact on the Atlantis? launch preparations, NASA is tracking two other storms currently making their way east across the Atlantic Ocean.

Thomas said KSC officials are watching the development of Hurricane Ike and, farther out, Tropical Storm Josephine to understand what impacts both storms might have if they stray too close to the coastal spaceport.

?What we are doing is watching it extremely closely to find out where it?s going to go,? Thomas said of the closer Hurricane Ike, a Category 4 storm currently about 525 miles (845 km) northeast of the Leeward Islands. ?We?ll just watch Ike and Josephine and see what happens.?

Atlantis is currently slated to launch toward Hubble on Oct. 8 carrying seven astronauts on an 11-day mission to overhaul the orbital observatory for the fifth and final time. Commanded by veteran spaceflyer Scott Altman, Atlantis astronauts plan to stage five back-to-back spacewalks to replace Hubble?s batteries, gyroscopes and thermal shielding, install new cameras, upgrade the telescope?s guidance system, attach docking equipment and make unprecedented repairs.

NASA initially cancelled the mission due to safety concerns after the tragic 2003 loss of the shuttle Columbia and its astronaut crew, but later reinstated it following dissent from scientists and the public, as well as the development of heat shield inspection and repair tools.

The space agency also plans to have a second space shuttle — the Endeavour orbiter — ready to serve as a rescue ship in case Atlantis suffered critical damage. Unlike recent shuttle missions, Atlantis will not be able to ferry its crew to the International Space Station to await rescue in an emergency because Hubble orbits the Earth at a higher altitude and different inclination than the station.

Instead, Atlantis astronauts will carry supplies for an extra 25 days to allow time for Endeavour and a four-person rescue crew to launch and rendezvous with their spacecraft, Altman has said. Atlantis? crew would then transfer to Endeavour during a series of spacewalks, but the actual likelihood such a rescue would ever be required is very low, he added.

Atlantis? STS-125 mission to Hubble will mark the fourth of up to five space shuttle missions planned for 2008.

Despite weather delays, shuttle workers still have about four days of padding to their current schedule to ready Atlantis for its planned Oct. 8 launch, Thomas said.

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