KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla.  Seven astronauts blasted off for one last dance with the Hubble Space Telescope on Monday.

The space shuttle Atlantis, commanded by Scott D. Altman, bolted through the sky on a pillar of smoke and fire just after 2 p.m. Monday. Atlantis is carrying 22,000 pounds of custom-designed tools, replacement parts and new instruments to slice and dice starlight as well as the hearts of scientists and stargazers everywhere. It is rushing toward a Wednesday rendezvous with the telescope, which happened to be floating about 350 miles directly above Cape Canaveral at launching time.

If all goes well, in five spacewalks starting Thursday morning, the crew members will revamp and refresh the telescope, which has dazzled the public and the science community with its iconic cosmic postcards. Then they will say goodbye on behalf of humanity forever. Sometime in the middle of the next decade, the Hubble will run out of juice, and it will eventually be crashed into the ocean.

Besides Commander Altman, the crew includes Gregory C. Johnson, as pilot, and John M. Grunsfeld, Michael J. Massimino, Michael T. Good, Andrew J. Fuestel and K. Megan McArthur, as mission specialists.