Astronauts Conduct Spacewalks to Upgrade Hubble

OBSS Returned to Payload BayAtlantis' crew completed the late inspection of the shuttle's reinforced carbon carbon panels on Tuesday. The Orbiter Boom Sensor System was also placed in the payload bay sill about an hour after inspection instead of Wednesday morning as had been planned.

STS-125 Leaves Improved Hubble Behind

The crew of Atlantis bid farewell to the Hubble Space Telescope on behalf of NASA and the rest of the world Tuesday. The telescope was released back into space at 8:57 a.m. EDT. With its upgrades, the telescope should be able to see farther into the universe than ever before.

Sheldon Kalnitsky says Atlantis performed a final separation maneuver from the telescope at 9:28 a.m., which took the shuttle out of the vicinity of Hubble. The berthing mechanism to which Hubble has been attached during the mission was stored back down into the payload bay.

The rest of the day was focused on the scheduled inspection of Atlantis’ heat shield, searching for any potential damage from orbital debris. The crew used the shuttle robotic arm to operate the Orbiter Boom Sensor System (OBSS) for the inspection. The crew worked ahead of schedule and returned the OBSS to the payload bay sill Tuesday instead of Wednesday.

› View the Launch of Atlantis in High Definition (HD)

STS-125 Additional Resources

› Mission Summary (407KB PDF)
› Press Kit (4.8MB PDF)
› Meet the Crew
› Learn About the Mission