Mated with an external tank and attached solid rocket boosters, the fully assembled shuttle will creep 3.5 miles out to launch pad 39A next weekend, in advance of NASA's fifth and final Hubble Space Telescope service mission. Atlantis and a crew of seven astronauts are scheduled to blast off on October 8 on a mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope. The STS-125 mission's duration is for 11-days in which the astronauts will outfit the observatory to operate through at least 2013.
The STS-125 mission crew will resume training Monday at NASA's Johnson Space Center, and will be practicing spacewalking telescope repair procedures.
Led by veteran astronaut Scott Altman, the crew for the mission includes pilot Gregory Johnson and mission specialists Andrew Feustal, Michael Good, John Grunsfeld, Michael Massimino and Megan McArthur. Atlantis will spend the next week in the 52-story assembly building and engineers will make certain the orbiter, the tank, the boosters and a mobile launcher platform all are mechanically and electrically hooked up.

