14 DAY TRIAL // This May, the space shuttle Atlantis flew the fifth and final repair flight to the venerable Hubble Space Telescope. The changes weren't purely aesthetic. A number of instruments, including the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, or WFPC-2, were replaced with better ones. The observatory also received new spectrometers, as well as three new gyroscopes, which allow it to maintain its position at all times. The parts that were removed from the instrument were not discarded, but delivered back to NASA by the seven astronauts of the Atlantis crew.
Now, the American space agency has decided that two of the instruments that were brought back to Earth should be displayed, so it gave them to the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, in Washington, which will put the exhibits on display. The pieces include the WFPC-2, as well as the Corrective Optics Space Telescope Axial Replacement, or COSTAR, instrument, the Caltech-based Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) announces. The lab is operated by the space agency. The two impressive instruments have spent more than 15 years in the coldness of space, before finally being returned to Earth for rest.
“This was the camera that saved Hubble. I have looked forward for a long time to stand in front of this very instrument while on display to the public,” Ed Weiler, who is the NASA Headquarters Science Mission Directorate associate administrator, says. Images from the WFPC-2 have made popular history, and can currently be seen on album covers, posters, classroom walls, at science fairs, and all over the Internet. The impact that the telescope made through this instrument, in bringing the beauty and perils of outer space back into the public eye, is unquantifiable, astronomers believe.
“For years the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 has been taking pictures of the universe. Today, we are taking pictures of the WFPC-2 and I guess if there was ever a camera that deserves to have its picture taken, this is it,” JPL scientist John Trauger adds. Between 1993 and 2009, the instrument snapped more than 135,000 pictures of various celestial bodies and structures, helping advance our understanding of the solar system, our galaxy, the Local Group, and beyond. The instruments will remain at this museum permanently, after they will make the rounds of the United States later this year.