atlantis launched successfully!

the shuttle atlantis successfully launched this afternoon - woohoo! the crew will arrive at the hubble space telescope on wednesday afternoon to give the old telescope some much needed love!

here's a view from above of the shuttle atlantis before the 1996 launch of sts-79!


this is a great shot from twitterer mattsimantov.


check out nasa's astrovan that shuttles the crew to the launch pad! every shuttle crew since 1984 has ridden the nine miles to the launch pad in this modified airstream motorhome. sweet :)



here's a hint at the flight plan of the atlantis crew over the next 11 days... they will be busy!!

Flight Day 6

DATE/EDT.......DD...HH...MM...EVENT
05/16/09
Sat 03:26 AM...04...13...25...HST: SSR engineering playback
Sat 04:31 AM...04...14...30...Crew wakeup
Sat 05:46 AM...04...15...45...EVA-3: Preparations begin
Sat 07:16 AM...04...17...15...EVA-3: Spacesuit purge
Sat 07:26 AM...04...17...25...EVA-3: Spacesuit pre-breathe
Sat 08:06 AM...04...18...05...EVA-3: Airlock depressurization
Sat 08:16 AM...04...18...15...EVA-3: Spacesuits to battery power
Sat 08:21 AM...04...18...20...EVA-3: Airlock egress and setup
Sat 08:46 AM...04...18...45...EVA-3: Cosmic Origins Spectrograph
Sat 10:46 AM...04...20...45...HST: COS aliveness test
Sat 11:36 AM...04...21...35...EVA-3: ACS repair (part 1)
Sat 02:01 PM...05...00...00...EVA-3: Cleanup and airlock ingress
Sat 02:46 PM...05...00...45...EVA-3: Airlock repressurization
Sat 02:46 PM...05...00...45...HST: COS functional test
Sat 02:56 PM...05...00...55...Spacesuit servicing

see the full schedule here.