Atlantis Says Bye To Hubble and Hello To Heat Shield Issues

Astronauts on board Space Shuttle Atlantis waved goodbye to the Hubble Space Telescope this morning as they released the spacecraft from its robotic hands of the Shuttle. The crew has been working several days on the old telescope, attempting to breath new life into it.

After the many long days of grueling hard work that the STS-125 has put into Hubble, the telescope is now in great shape to continue on with its exploration work for the next 5-10 years without any additional repair work being needed done to it.

As astronaut Megan McArther released the Hubble Telescope at 8:57AM EDT, the Space Shuttle slowly moved away from their reach of Hubble. The Shuttle and Hubble were 350 miles above Africa when the two split from one another.

Around 9:28AM the Space Shuttle Atlantis fired its thrusters to increase its distance from Hubble. The crew is now at a safe distance from Hubble and the crew will work on stowing the equipment that they used to provide interfaces between the telescope and Atlantis. The equipment also was used as a maintenance platform that held Hubble in place while providing a means for rotation for correct positioning during deployment and in-orbit servicing.

After the crew completes their last tasks of the Hubble Repair mission, they will turn their attention to Atlantis' thermal protection issue and evaluate the data to determine the health of the protection system. These inspections are expected to begin around 12:51PM EDT.