Challenges Ahead In Final Hubble Servicing Mission

Hugh Pickens writes "Space shuttle Atlantis is slated to lift off Monday on the fifth and final servicing mission to Hubble with four mission specialists alternating in two-astronaut teams will attempt a total of five spacewalks from Atlantis to replace broken components, add new science instruments, and swap out the telescope's six 125-pound (57-kilogram) batteries, original parts that have powered Hubble's night-side operations for nearly two decades. 'This is our final opportunity to service and upgrade Hubble,' says David Leckrone, senior project scientist for the Hubble Space Telescope. 'So we're replacing some items that are getting long in the tooth to give Hubble longevity, and then we'll try to take advantage of that five- to 10-year extra lifetime with the most powerful instrumental tools we've ever had on board.' Some of the upgrades are relatively straightforward and modular: yank out old part, put in new. But they're big parts: The 'fine guidance sensors' sound delicate but weigh as much as a grand piano back on Earth. But what's different this time is that the astronauts will also open up some instruments and root around inside, doing Geek Squad-like repairs while wearing bulky spacesuits and traveling around the planet at 17,000 mph. 'We have this choreographed almost down to the minute of what we want the crew to do. It's this really fine ballet,' said Keith Walyus, the servicing mission operations manager at Goddard. 'We've been training for this for seven years. We can't wait for this to happen.'"

Comments

Re:17,000 mph sounds like it's fast

[Geoffrey.landis]

When you drive on the highway, if you are going 85mph passing a car going 80mph, you only really experience a 5mph velocity differential with that car. Given that both of you are traveling at similar speeds, maneuvering around each other should be relatively simple as you only have to gauge the distances with regard to the 5mph differential and not the 80mph absolute velocity.

Sure. But then, I rarely repair my car while driving down the road at 85 MPH, although you are pointing out that I could.

Re:That's nothing

[camperdave]

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour,
That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
A sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour,
Of the galaxy we call the 'Milky Way'.
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.
It's a hundred thousand light years side to side.
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick,
But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide.
We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point.
We go 'round every two hundred million years,
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.

Re:17,000 mph sounds like it's fast

[CrimsonAvenger]

Of course, there could be debris also moving at 17,000mph... in the opposite direction.

No.

That would require a retrograde orbit, which noone uses.

Of course, if Hubble were in a polar orbit, this could happen. But it's not, so it won't.

Did you mean "not JUST the visible light range"?

[jeffb (2.718)]

HST does not operate in the visible light range and images you see are colorized from data gathered from several instruments.

How's that again? I'm seeing that it handles wavelengths from 110nm (hard UV) to 1100nm, or maybe 2300nm, or maybe deeper IR than that. Visible (400-700nm) is smack in the middle of that range, and well-covered by the instrumentation.

Re:Best of Luck guys

[MachineShedFred]

"or lets the astronauts engineer on the spot solutions."

Like the first time they serviced it, and couldn't get the damn doors closed without using a come-along strap.

(Yes, this happened)