NASA Approves Repair Mission for Hubble Space Telescope
31 October 2006
Administrator Griffin announces crew that will make repairs in 2008
Washington – A standing ovation greeted the news from NASA Administrator Mike Griffin October 31 that the agency will send one more space shuttle mission to the Hubble Space Telescope in 2008 to extend and improve the observatory's capabilities through 2013.
Griffin announced plans for a fifth servicing mission to Hubble during a meeting with agency employees at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, the center responsible for managing Hubble.
The Hubble Space Telescope is an international cooperative project between NASA and the European Space Agency.
"We have conducted a detailed analysis of the performance and procedures necessary to carry out a successful Hubble repair mission over the course of the last three shuttle missions,” Griffin said during the event that was broadcast on NASA TV.
“What we have learned has convinced us that we are able to conduct a safe and effective servicing mission to Hubble," he added.
The flight tentatively is targeted for launch during spring to fall of 2008. Mission planners are determining the best location and vehicle to support the needs of Hubble and minimize the effect on International Space Station assembly.
The planners are investigating the best way to support a launch-on-need rescue mission for the Hubble flight. The current option will keep launchpad 39-B at Kennedy Space Center in Florida available for such a flight if it becomes necessary.
16 YEARS IN SPACE
Launched in April 1990, Hubble is a school bus-sized, optically superb telescope that revolutionized astronomy by orbiting 575 kilometers above Earth’s distorting atmosphere and giving scientists and students a detailed look at the farthest known galaxies in the universe.
Earth's atmosphere is a fluid, chaotic soup of gas and dust. It blurs visible light, causing stars to twinkle and making it hard to see faint stars. It hinders or absorbs other wavelengths of light, making observations of infrared, ultraviolet, gamma rays and X-rays difficult or impossible.
Hubble completes an orbit around Earth every 97 minutes.
Four servicing missions with the space shuttle – in 1993, 1997, 1999 and 2002 – have extended its scientific powers through new instrumentation.
The telescope’s scientific objectives are to determine the constitution, characteristics and dynamics of celestial bodies; the nature of processes that occur in the extreme physical conditions in and between astronomical objects; the history and evolution of the universe; and whether the laws of nature are universal in the space-time continuum.
The initial cost to build and put Hubble into orbit was $1.5 billion. Its total budget in one year is from $230 million to $250 million.
In addition to operational costs, the total dollar figure includes funds for analyzing scientific data and developing hardware and associated software.
The concept of servicing Hubble to upgrade its instruments rather than launching a new telescope – the only one of NASA’s four orbiting observatories that can be so maintained – has saved billions of dollars.
ASTRONAUTS AND INSTRUMENTS
Griffin also announced the astronauts selected for the mission.
Veteran astronaut Scott Altman will command the space shuttle mission to Hubble. Naval Reserve Captain Gregory Johnson will serve as pilot.
Mission specialists include veteran spacewalkers John Grunsfeld and Michael Massimino and first-time space fliers Andrew Feustel, Michael Good and Megan McArthur.
The astronauts will install two new instruments -- the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) and the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3).
The COS is the most sensitive ultraviolet spectrograph ever flown on Hubble. The instrument will probe the cosmic web, the large-scale structure of the universe whose form is determined by the gravity of dark matter and traced by the spatial distribution of galaxies and intergalactic gas.
WFC3 is a new camera sensitive across a wide range of wavelengths (colors), including infrared, visible and ultraviolet light. It will have a broad reach -- from the planets in the Earth’s solar system to the early and distant galaxies beyond Hubble's current reach, to nearby galaxies with stories to tell about their star formation histories.
Other planned work includes installing a refurbished fine guidance sensor that replaces one degrading unit of the three already onboard. The sensors control the telescope's pointing system.
The crew also will try to repair the space telescope imaging spectrograph. It was installed in 1997 and stopped working in 2004.
The instrument is used for high-resolution studies in visible and ultraviolet light of nearby star systems and distant galaxies, providing information about the motions and chemical makeup of stars, planetary atmospheres and other galaxies.
"Hubble has been rewriting astronomy text books for more than 15 years, and all of us are looking forward to the new chapters that will be added with future discoveries and insights about our universe," said Mary Cleave, NASA's associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate.
The Hubble servicing mission is an 11-day flight. After launch, the shuttle will rendezvous with the telescope on the third day of the flight.
Using the shuttle's mechanical arm, crew members will put the telescope on a work platform in the shuttle cargo bay. Five separate spacewalks will be needed to accomplish all mission objectives.
More information about the mission and the Hubble Space Telescope is available on the NASA Web site.
For more information on U.S. policy, see Science and Technology.
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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