14 DAY TRIAL // Later today, astronauts aboard the space shuttle Atlantis will bid farewell to the renewed Hubble Space Telescope, after they have managed to successfully install $220 million worth of new instruments aboard the observatory, and also to repair existing damage. In a series of unbelievably long and hard spacewalks, stretching over eight days of mission, the seven-astronaut crew has succeeded in pulling the telescope out of orbit, in docking it in the shuttle's cargo bay, and also in repairing and upgrading it in only five days. NASA announced today that it was extremely thrilled with the resounding success of the mission, and that things went perfectly, when they could have been a lot worse.
During their spacewalks, which achieved all of the tasks they set out to do, and then some, astronauts installed the brand new Wide Field Planetary Camera 3 (WFPC 3) wide-field camera for deep-space observations and repaired the damaged Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS), which is able to detect faint light from quasars and black holes. They also installed the new Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS), and repaired Hubble's main “eyes,” the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). In addition to bringing its observation abilities back online, Atlantis mission specialists also installed six new gyroscopes, six battery sets, a new Fine Guidance Sensor, as well as a new coating of thermal insulators.
“Happy voyages,” Astronaut John Grunsfeld told the telescope once the fifth and final spacewalk was complete, giving it a pat on the back. “It's hard not to think of Hubble as something alive, but I really was thinking of Hubble as a friend,” he added, after attending several missions to repair the most famous orbit-based observatory in history. “It's been a real thrill,” Scot Altman, who has been the commander of the STS-125 Atlantis mission to Hubble, told.
“There are already some bittersweet feelings. We're extremely pleased with the success of the mission and happy. But on the other hand, we're sad that this will be the last time we see it,” Preston Burch, who is the NASA Hubble program manager, told reports on Monday at the Johnson Space Center. “We have a saying in the science mission directorate, 'Science Never Sleeps,' and our work is just beginning. We can't wait to get out there and use Hubble for its intended purposes,” Space quotes the Chief of NASA's astrophysics division, Jon Morse, as saying.
After they separate from the telescope later today, the seven astronauts will conduct an in-flight interview, after which time they will carry out the routine heat shield integrity check, using a sensor-laden pole. They will check the state of the thermal tiles, as they have been working for quite some time in the debris-filled space around Hubble. Just in case, the Endeavor space shuttle is still ready for lift-off at Launch pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, if the emergency STS-400 rescue mission is ordered into effect.