Astronauts Board Atlantis Preparing For Shuttle Launch

Just before 10AM CDT Astronauts began boarding Space Shuttle Atlantis at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The STS-125 crew had arrived at the Launch Pad 39A and just started to board the shuttle to prepare for their launch.

In about two hours at 2:01PM EDT, the Space Shuttle Atlantis will launch the STS-125 crew into space for their 11-day mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope. Weather remains favorable with a 90 percent chance of 'good launch conditions'.

Scott Altman will take command of the mission and retired Navy Captain Gregory C Johnson will serve as pilot. Mission specialists rounding out the crew are: veteran spacewalkers John Grunsfeld and Mike Massimino, and first-time space fliers Andrew Feustel, Michael Good and Megan McArthur.

As we reported yesterday the crew will be replacing parts and adding functionality to the space telescope.