STS-125 Returns to the VAB

Silhouetted Journey

Silhouetted against an early morning Florida sky, space shuttle Atlantis begins to roll away from Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. At left are the pad’s fixed service structure topped by its 80-foot lightning mast and the rotating service structure. The space shuttle is mounted on a Mobile Launcher Platform atop a crawler transporter for the trip back to the Vehicle Assembly Building.

Traveling slower than 1 mph, the 3.4-mile journey takes approximately six hours. Once inside the Vehicle Assembly Building, Atlantis will await its return to the pad for launch on mission STS-125 to repair NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, delayed when a system that transfers science data from the orbiting observatory to Earth malfunctioned.

Image credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett Oct. 20, 2008

Nick

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