Atlantis Crew Nabs Hubble

After 19 long years in space, the Hubble Telescope needs a little makeover—but the repairs are extremely risky. Two days after blasting off from Florida and chasing it 832,000 miles through orbit, NASA astronauts aboard the space shuttle Atlantis grabbed the bus-size telescope with their space craft’s robotic arm in a dangerous and delicate operation. But the seven-strong crew isn’t done yet: They will take five space walks wearing $10 million spacesuits to replace Hubble’s batteries and install other features to make the scope 70 times more powerful than before. NASA has a second shuttle on standby in case the crew needs rescuing—500-degree temperature swings could throw a wrench in the astronauts’ maintenance work.