Two of shuttle Atlantis astronauts are about to begin the first of five planned spacewalks this morning in support of upgrading the Hubble Space Telescope and extending the life of NASA's great observatory into 2014 and beyond.
Astronauts John Grunsfeld and Drew Feustel will begin their walk in space at about 8:15 am EDT, as their pair go on internal power & oxygen and depart Atlantis' airlock. The spacewalk, or extra vehicular activity in NASA jargon, is planned to last 6 1/2 hours. This will be the 19th spacewalk in support of Hubble servicing since December 1993.
This will be Grunsfeld's sixth spacewalk in support of Hubble repairs, having visited the telescope on space shuttle flights in 1999 and 2002. He has looged 129 hours & 10 minutes of spacewalking time during the five previous spacewalks.
During the duo's time outside Atlantis, they will replace the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (which was installed in 1993 on STS-61) with a newer Wide Field Camera 3. WFC 3 will, according to Mission Control, "allow Hubble to capture a wide range of images from ultraviolet to near-infrared wavelengths".
If you have time to watch the spacewalk or EVA on your computer at work or home, watch it right now LIVE via http://spacelaunchnews.com. During this EVA, Grunsfeld will be wearing red stripes on his space suit - or extra mobility unit - and Feustel will have no stripes on his EMU. Grunsfeld's helmet camera will be noted with the number 19 on the screen, and Feustel will have the #20 at the lower bottom on the NASA TV screen.
The seven member crew of Mission STS-125 awoke this morning at 4:31 pm EDT, to the muisc of Cake's Stick Shifts and Safety Belts.
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