According to veteran reporter and U.S.A.F. veteran Scott Harris of News 13 in central Florida, his latest story reveals that many are calling the space shuttle Atlantis launch on May 11th to repair and upgrade the Hubble space telescope the most dangerous mission in a long time.

"The mission marks the first time in seven years a space shuttle is going somewhere other than the International Space Station. Atlantis and its crew are going to the Hubble Space Telescope, which is in a completely different orbit than the space station, and that makes a world of difference. The Hubble’s orbit is considerably higher and “dirtier” than the ISS. Hubble is about 350 miles above the earth, while the space station is just over 200 miles. The extra altitude will expose Atlantis to more pieces of space junk, any of which could potentially slam into the shuttle. The odds of a catastrophic strike by orbital debris is something NASA has been closley monitoring, and there it an estimated one-in-221 chance of a debris collision with shuttle Atlantis.

“We’re pleased with where we’ve gotten to with respect to orbital debris risk for this Hubble mission, which as you know, since we’re at higher altitude, is a little bit greater than what it is for some of the station missions,” said LeRoy Cain, deputy space shuttle program manager, at a recent NASA briefing. If Atlantis suffers serious damage during launch or in flight, the astronauts will not be able to take refuge in the International Space Station while awaiting a ride home. Also, without going to the space station, Atlantis will not be able to do the routine inspection checks that have become common in space following the re-entry loss of shuttle Columbia.

“We’re not performing the RPM, the pitch maneuver for this flight, so we have to come up with some substitutes for that,” said Tony Ceccacci, the mission’s lead flight director. “On Flight Day 1, we’ll be doing an upper crew cabin survey. It’s about a 45-minute task, and we’ll have to do this in the daylight.” Flight Day 2 consists of more damage surveys. In all, it will take over 9.5 hours to make sure the shuttle is free from damage. If there is damage, the crew would be stranded in their spacecraft at the Hubble, where NASA estimates they could stay alive for 25 days before losing oxygen. That’s where shuttle Endeavour comes into play. Endeavour and four more astronauts would need to blast off on a rescue flight as soon as NASA determines Atlantis is too damaged to fly home.