HOUSTON - NASA announced Thursday that space shuttle Atlantis' STS-125
mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope is targeted to launch
May 12, 2009.

The final servicing mission to Hubble was delayed in September when a
data handling unit on the telescope failed. Since then, engineers
have been working to prepare a spare for flight. They expect to be
able to ship the spare, known as the Science Instrument Command and
Data Handling System, to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida in
spring 2009.

STS-125 is an 11-day flight featuring five spacewalks to extend
Hubble's life into the next decade by refurbishing and upgrading the
telescope with state-of-the-art science instruments and swapping
failed hardware. Scott Altman will command STS-125, with Gregory C.
Johnson serving as pilot. Mission specialists are veteran
spacewalkers John Grunsfeld and Mike Massimino, and first-time space
fliers Andrew Feustel, Michael Good and Megan McArthur.

The manifest has been adjusted to reflect current planning. The next
space shuttle mission, STS-119, is targeted for launch on Feb. 12,
2009. Preparations continue for the STS-127 mission, currently
targeted for launch in May 2009. That launch will be further assessed
and coordinated with NASA's international partners at a later date.
STS-128 is targeted for August 2009, and STS-129 is targeted for
November 2009. All target launch dates are subject to change.

The shuttle launch manifest is available at:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/iss_manifest.html

For more about the Hubble repair mission, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/hubble