September 4, 2008--Space shuttle Atlantis emerges from Kennedy Space Center's vehicle assembly building on September 4.

The shuttle is scheduled to blast off from the Florida facility October 10 on a mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope.

The spaceflight will last 11 days and feature five spacewalks. This final scheduled trip to Hubble is intended to boost the telescope's discovery power some 10 to 70 times and keep Hubble operational until at least 2013.

--Brian Handwerk