14 DAY TRIAL // Yesterday's fifth and final servicing spacewalk to repair the aging Hubble Space Telescope was successfully completed by Atlantis Astronauts John Grunsfeld and Andrew Feustel, in seven hours and two minutes. The final upgrades and finishing touches to the space observatory were also added, and the two even managed to install the new heat insulation layers, which were designed to protect the instrument's sensitive electronics from the harsh environment of outer space. This was the last mission ever to the most famous telescope in the world, and mission controllers hope that the astronauts' efforts will ensure that Hubble remains operational at least until 2014.
“This is a really tremendous adventure that we've been on, a very challenging mission. Hubble isn't just a satellite, it's about humanity's quest for knowledge,” Grunsfeld, a self-proclaimed “Hubble hugger,” said, as he and Feustel finished up work on the aging telescope. “Hubble is returned to flagship status. It now has a full arsenal of instruments and tools for astronomers to make new discoveries during the next several years,” Space quotes NASA's Astrophysics Division Director Jon Morse as telling recently.
The space shuttle Atlantis is scheduled to release Hubble from its grasp and back into orbit today, after which time it will begin preparations to end its 11-day mission. NASA said that it took well over $1.1 billion to make this servicing flight possible, and that the total cost of the Hubble telescope, calculated from 1990 to 2009, was somewhere around $10 billion. However, the investment has thus far remained justified, considering the large cornucopia of data that was beamed back by the observatory, despite the fact that two of its instruments were nonoperational, and that batteries and gyroscopes were in poor condition.
During the final spacewalk, Grunsfeld and Feustel installed a new set of batteries to replace the old ones, and also a new Fine Guidance Sensor aboard the venerable observatory. The replacing of the sensors will hopefully allow the telescope to point itself to its target more accurately from now on, and thus get better pictures of it. A new thermal insulating layer was also added to the spacecraft, on account of the fact that the old one was in very rough shape. The astronauts started work one hour earlier than planned, just to have time to do all of this.
Atlantis is scheduled to return to Earth on May 22nd, 2009, at around 11:41 am EDT (15:41 UTC), and will land at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. All that remains for the astronauts on the shuttle is to perform a routine heat shield inspection, to ensure that everything is literally smooth, and that no severe damage exists.