After blasting off from Cape Canaveral on Monday, Astronauts are inspecting the U.S. space shuttle Atlantis, which is due to catch up to the Hubble on Wednesday. The astronauts are en route to the Hubble to perform a cleaning and refining mission on the space station, which has become cluttered with space junk over the years. This makes the mission especially dangerous for the astronauts. On Tuesday, the seven astronauts will spend the entire day inspecting virtually every inch of the shuttle for any launch damage. They surveyed the thermal shielding on their crew cabin Monday evening. Another shuttle, Endeavour, is at the launch pad in Cape Canaveral, and could take off in three to six days if the astronauts had to be rescued.
