Just when I thought I was out-they pull me back in
Hubble Repair Mission IV (and final)
« on: 2009-04-28 01:27:48 »
About twelve more days (May 12th), and NASA and the space shuttle folks will dispatch one of their top-drawer teams to work on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) for the fourth and last time.
Space shuttle astronauts on Tuesday morning released the Hubble Space Telescope, following five spacewalks to repair and improve the 19-year-old spacecraft.
Unedited Transcript
NASA astronauts Tuesday morning released the Hubble telescope back into orbit after completing repairs and adding new equipment.
The space shuttle Atlantis gently pulled away after releasing Hubble from the shuttles robotic arm.
Spacewalking astronauts completed repairs to the 19-year-old HubbleSpace Telescope on Monday, leaving it more powerful than ever and able to peer even deeper into the cosmos.
UPSOUND (English) "You hear that guys? you've done it all." "We've done it all." "Not yet, I'm still working. But it's been a great achievement up here..."
They outfitted the observatory with another set of fresh batteries, a new sensor for precise pointing and protective covers.
That equipment, along with other improvements made over the last five days, should allow the telescope to provide dazzling views of the universe for another five to 10 years.
SOUNDBITE (English) Tony Ceccacci, Lead Flight Director: "It's a great moment because like everyone's been saying, we put the Hubble in the best posture and performance that it could ever been in. And what a good way to do your last shuttle EVA. And what better than with the Hubble."
It was the fifth and final spacewalk for the shuttle Atlantis crew, and the final visit by astronauts ever to Hubble.
As the spacewalk drew to a close, Hubble's chief mechanic, John Grunsfeld, accidentally bumped one of the telescope's antennas and knocked off its cap with his backpack.
UPSOUND (English) John Grunsfeld: "Oh no, I hope the antenna's okay. Oh, I feel terrible. I tapped the low gain antenna."
Mission Control quickly assured the astronauts the antenna was fine.
SOUNDBITE (English) Preston Burch, Associate Director of Flight Projects: "Yeah, this low gain antenna, we use it when we're in the payload bay, through the payload interrogator on the shuttle, and we've made performance measurements after the incident that occurred, and you know, we have a cover that we placed over top of it, and it's working fine."
During this last house call, astronauts gave Hubble two state-of-the-art science instruments and fixed two others. The additions should allow the telescope to gaze farther back into time, within 500 (m) million or 600 (m) million years of the first moments of the universe.
NASA hopes to crank Hubble back up by summer's end, following extensive testing of its new parts.
Just when I thought I was out-they pull me back in
Re:Hubble Repair Mission IV (and final)
« Reply #2 on: 2009-05-21 16:56:06 »
5/20/2009 The STS-125 crew woke up at 4:03 a.m. EDT to the theme from the television series Star Trek, which was composed by Alexander Courage. The song was played for the entire crew. This morning the crew talked with members of the media at different NASA centers about the mission. Early in the afternoon the crew made a ship-to-ship call to Expedition 19 aboard the International Space Station.
The space shuttle Atlantis is currently expected to return to Kennedy Space Center in Florida at approx. 9am CST Friday, 5/22/2009.
Just when I thought I was out-they pull me back in
Re:Hubble Repair Mission IV (and final)
« Reply #4 on: 2009-05-24 19:49:19 »
I've deep-linked in YouTube the part in one of the many in-flight interviews with the astronauts where Commander Scott (Scooter) Altman describes space shuttle Atlantis's initial approach to the Hubble space telescope and the ensuing spatial relations dance that occurred.
"Scooter" then makes my day with the "hand gesturing, Kabuki theater and fighter pilot lingo" summation of HIS input into the choreography.
Some great characters floated to the top on this STS-125 Hubble Repair Mission.
PS--nevermind on the deep link. doesn't work on embedded players. You can nonetheless just go to 3 minutes 57 seconds manually.
Just when I thought I was out-they pull me back in
Re:Hubble Repair Mission IV (and final)
« Reply #5 on: 2009-05-24 20:30:43 »
One last, but not least, Hubble repair mission video you MUST see is this one:
It is in breathtakingly beautiful HD, and I've added a tag to the link to make it start in HD, so you DON'T need to click the HD button again when you arrive at YouTube (just make sure it says "View in Normal" or something similar when you float over the HD button).
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