Hubble Repair Mission Launches Monday at 2:01 ET

Great launch and I met some really great people at our local gathering in the Route 192 causeway between Melbourne, Florida and the Indialantic. The gentleman next to me was personal friends with Commander John L. Swigert, Jr. from Apollo 13.

The viewing was not the best due to some low level haze, but still got some good shots. We are about 35 miles from the pad. Camera is an old Nikon D2H with a 1.4 teleconverter and the venerable 70-210mm VR zoom lens at full zoom.

Here is the launch as it rose over the Indialantic island above the US Flag:

The next shot is below the cloud level where it is still hazy:

After penetrating the cloud layer, where the orbiter briefly disappeared, the image quality will improve, but this one was the best:

Blue skies! Now we have a clearer view at last. You can make out the orbiter and its external tank:

However, it gets even better... Roger Sep!

Another view as the twin boosters return to Earth (actually, the Atlantic ocean) to be refurbished.

Last shot before teh orbiter, which is on its own three engines fades from sight...

Only eight more missions are planned for the Shuttle before it is retired forever next year. Then there is the long wait for the replacement.

My bet is that the Shuttle will be flying longer than that, but we must wait and see what Congress thinks. After all, we (the USA) are soooooo far in debt that we probably can't do it (or anything else).

Until next time!!!

Thanks for the AWESOME pictures!

I just watched that show on PBS about the shuttle disasters and the future space 'vision'.. and the next gen lift vehicles look like a good idea... just putting the payload/humans back on top of the craft increases the safety factor a lot. (they claim 10:1)

anything that gets space exploration cranked up is a good thing in my book.

great pictures btw.. keep up the good work!

Chris

The BIG problem for Ares I is "shake". Shake is the vibration caused primarily by solid rocket boosters and it can be bad. Right now the design models show that the shake is so bad that the craft is most likely to break up on ascent.

Because there is a lot of time and money already invested in the design it is unlikely that the clocks will be turned back to fix the problem with a clean sheet. Rather, the fix will be more of a Band-Aid fix in my mind.

Obama had signaled shortly after the election that he was considering cancellation of the Ares I and replacing it with a human-rated Atlas 5 or Delta 4 expendable rocket as a mechanism to save money. The Ares IV would continue development for heavy lift.

Now, as president, Obama has ordered a reevaluation of the whole program (among other cuts), which tells me that he may indeed keep his word on the statement made above.

I have mixed feelings about this, but even if they stay the course there is probably going to be even larger delays in the program. NASA lacks leadership and with the newly created huge budget deficets I have little reason to believe that things will go as well as NASA has hoped. We will see.

However, if you want to point fingers, I think that NASA made a wrong turn in the 1970s when they designed and built the Shuttle as a heavy lift vehicle and human transport.

ORLY?

My understanding is that the thrust oscillation was under control.

I have not heard differently, but I am sure that there is a lot of pressure to keep positive reports flowing, too.

Great pictures!

If I might toot my own horn -

The Shuttle is carrying a piece of the project I'm currently working on. It's a docking ring that will be installed on one of the space walks. Later on, a (presumeably) robotic craft will be sent up to grab the Hubble by this docking ring, and carefully nudge it towards Earth for a controlled deorbit so that it will fall harmlessly into the ocean, or Australia, whatever.

Nice work!