It’s a blast.

Space Shuttle Atlantis this afternoon thundered into the heavens from Launch Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center for a rendezvous with an eye in the sky, the Hubble Space Telescope.

The shuttle and its seven crew members soared past storm clouds gathering to the north, with the shuttle making a perfect liftoff. Except for minor problems that had no real effect on the mission — a bad transducer that set off alarms, some ice buildup, a redundant flight control feedback system — the uphill climb to a higher orbit than normal for a shuttle (more than 300 miles) was uneventful, with no trims required.

While NASA always is alert to any foam insulation ripping loose from the external fuel tank, chunks of foam that could damage the orbiter vehicle, only a couple of small pieces were spotted in the solid rocket booster plume, and then some small bits that broke free late in the ascent, moving at low velocity, Bill Gerstenmaier, associate NASA administrator for space operations, said.

After so many years of waiting for a mission that at one time was not going to happen, the Atlantis liftoff brought immense relief to NASA personnel, and to others who made the mission possible, including Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.), who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee commerce, justice, science and related agencies subcommittee. There, she fought to get the repair mission funded.

The STS-125 Mission "means that for years to come, Hubble will keep going where no telescope has gone before," she said.

"Hubble is the greatest tool for studying the universe since Galileo’s telescope," she added. "Hubble is responsible for the Golden Age of astronomy. How incredible. How spectacular."

Atlantis crew members will repair and refurbish the celestial observatory in an STS-125 Mission that was delayed most recently by half a year because the Hubble unexpectedly developed serious problems just before Atlantis was to begin the mission last year. Actually, the Hubble mission initially was to take off even before the Space Shuttle Columbia accident in 2003, a tragedy that pushed shuttle missions into a years-long delay.

Atlantis will rendezvous with the Hubble telescope Wednesday.

By the time that Atlantis undocks and leaves the space telescope, the Hubble will be good for five to eight years (it’s tough to say precisely) of operations, better than the high-flying observatory has ever been, according to Ed Weiler, associate NASA administrator for the Science Mission Directorate.

That delay illustrated just how chancy it is that the eight remaining space shuttle missions can be flown before a deadline for the shuttle fleet to retire on Sept. 30 next year.

The Hubble repair mission will keep the space telescope running better than ever until its replacement, the James Webb Space Telescope, is launched in the next decade.

Even before this latest fix-up, however, the Hubble has yielded stunning photos of the universe, providing astronomers with great new insights into the earliest years after the Big Bang.

At one time, funding problems meant that the Hubble mission seemed likely never to get off the ground. But strong efforts by some lawmakers made the mission a reality: Mikulski, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) and others all worked to get the mission authorized and funded.

Endeavour As Life Raft

Because Atlantis is headed to Hubble, the crew members won’t have the International Space Station to use as a life raft if Atlantis develops problems. Therefore, they needed someone to watch their back, and rush to the rescue if need be: during the Atlantis launch, Space Shuttle Endeavour stood poised and ready on the nearby Launch Pad 39B, so it can race to the rescue if Atlantis experiences a problem. It will take about five or six days to get Endeavour ready — ordnance will be put in place on explosive structural elements tomorrow — and then Endeavour will be just three days away from a potential rescue mission launch.

Atlantis crew members will check their orbiter vehicle carefully for any damage, when first reaching orbit, while at the Hubble, and after undocking from the space telescope.

If, hopefully, nothing goes amiss and Atlantis rolls to wheels stop safely after the 11-day Hubble mission, then Endeavour will be transported to Launch Pad 39A for the STS-127 Mission to the space station, where Endeavour crew members will install the exposed facility of the Japanese Kibo Laboratory.

When Endeavour leaves Pad 39B, that will mark a major change: it will be the last space shuttle to occupy that launch pad. After Endeavour moves off it, the Constellation Program developing the next-generation U.S. spacecraft system will take over the B pad, preparing for a rocket test flight.

While the Orion space capsule that the Constellation Program is developing might be able to take some smaller items to fix the Hubble, only the Hubble has the immense size to carry many new systems for the telescope, and a robotic arm to drag it into the shuttle cargo bay for the repair work. This is to be the final repair mission for the Hubble, which hopefully will continue operating until after the future James Webb Space Telescope begins operations in the middle of the next decade.

The Atlantis mission will replace entire systems on the Hubble during a series of spacewalks. The Atlantis crew includes Commander Scott Altman. Retired Navy Capt. Gregory C. Johnson is the pilot. Mission specialists include veteran spacewalkers John M. Grunsfeld and Michael J. Massimino and first-time space fliers Andrew J. Feustel, Michael T. Good and K. Megan McArthur.

McArthur will be flight engineer and lead robotic arm operator, while the other mission specialists leave the shuttle, two by two, during the five spacewalks needed to repair the Hubble.

Altman, Grunsfeld and Massimino are space shuttle and Hubble mission veterans. Johnson, Feustel and Good are first-time space fliers.

The STS-125 mission is the 126th shuttle flight, the 30th for Atlantis and the second of five planned in 2009. Hubble was delivered to space on April 24, 1990, on the STS-31 mission. STS-125 is referred to as Servicing Mission 4, although it is technically the fifth servicing flight to the telescope.

Among Hubble’s greatest discoveries is the age of the universe (13.7 billion years); the finding that virtually all major galaxies have black holes at their center; the discovery that the process of planetary formation is relatively common; the first ever organic molecule in the atmosphere of a planet orbiting another star; and evidence that the expansion of the universe is accelerating — caused by an unknown force that makes up approximately 72 percent of the matter-energy content of the universe.