NASA pulled space shuttle Atlantis off the launch pad and sent it back to the hangar Monday to await a trip to the Hubble Space Telescope next year. Atlantis was originally scheduled to blast off this month on a mission to make various repairs and upgrade the telescope. But the Hubble broke down three weeks ago and stopped sending data for its space pictures, forcing NASA to regroup and delay its mission until February at the earliest.
After its mission was shelved this week because of a Hubble Space Telescope malfunction, shuttle Atlantis and its cargo will be returned to storage until next year. Kennedy Space Centre technicians this weekend will begin preparations to remove the shuttle's highly sensitive cargo of science instruments early next week, while Atlantis is expected to roll back to the Vehicle Assembly Building on Oct. 20.
NASA Announces New Target Launch Dates, Status News Conference The target launch date for space shuttle Atlantis' STS-125 mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope has been reset to Oct. 14 at 10:19 p.m. EDT.
World news before it happens - NASA's STS-125 in October, launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida, is the fifth and final servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope.
There's some more bad news from the Kennedy Space Centre (KSC) processing flow for the Hubble Space Telescope components. After being ferried to Launch Pad 39A Saturday night, the canister carrying the Hubble payload couldn't be mated with ground support equipment (GSE).
Space junk a challenge for shuttle Next months scheduled shuttle flight to the Hubble Space Telescope faces an increased risk of a destructive hit by space junk because it will be in a higher, more littered orbit than usual, NASA officials said.