Why is Hubble important?
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope is fulfilling the hopes astronomers long held for a large, optically superb telescope orbiting above Earth’s distorting atmosphere and providing uniquely clear and deep views of the cosmos. After months of training and a seven-month postponement, the STS-125 crew’s mission got under way with an on-time launch into a brilliant-blue Florida sky. The May 11, 2009, liftoff of space shuttle Atlantis took place at 2:01 p.m. EDT from Launch Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. As if to say, “Come on up!” the 19-year-old Hubble was passing directly over Kennedy at the time of the launch. The mission ended later than planned at the backup landing site, Edwards Air Force Base in California. Lingering tropical rain in Florida produced three consecutive days of wave-offs at Kennedy before Atlantis made an 11:39 a.m. EDT touchdown at Edwards on May 24. Veteran astronaut Scott Altman commanded this final space shuttle mission to Hubble, with Gregory C. Johnson as pil
