Godspeed Col. Good and STS-125

All is looking well for the launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis and the crew of STS-125 at 2:01 Eastern Time today.  My classmate, Col. Mike Good (USAF) is one the mission specialists on this mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope (HST).  The mission like previous missions to the Hubble will replace some of the guidance and communication systems.  In addition the crew of STS-125 will replace two failed instruments and remove the corrective optics and replace it with another scientific instrument.  The Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) will probe the origins of the universe.  The new Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) will replace the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 ("WiffPic2").  WFP3 will work with Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) in the visible and UV wavelenghts.  These elements were not designed as field replaceable units (FRUs) so as one of the mission specialists said, "It's like doing brain surgery on the Hubble."

Good luck Col. Good and Godspeed to STS-125.  I'll see you at the reunion, Mike.