NASA clears Atlantis for Monday launch to Hubble

NASA has cleared space shuttle Atlantis for a Monday launch to the Hubble Space Telescope.

Mission managers met Saturday and concluded that Atlantis is ready to take off on the long-delayed Hubble repair mission. Shuttle Endeavour is at the other launch pad. It's on standby in case Atlantis is damaged during the flight and its seven astronauts need to be rescued.

Forecasters put the odds of good launch weather at 80 percent. And things are looking up at the emergency landing site in Spain, where there is only a slight chance of rain Monday. Liftoff time is just after 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT).

Atlantis' crew will perform five spacewalks to install new cameras and equipment at Hubble, and to repair some broken science instruments.