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

Uh Oh

[MyLongNickName]

This all sounded good until they said they would be doing "Geek Squad style repairs". Does this mean they will recommend the Norton Anti-virus suite be installed and send a $500 bill?

Re:Uh Oh

[GrifterCC]

And steal Hubble's pr0n!

Re:Uh Oh

[amazeofdeath]

Maybe Hubble's registry has been clogged up, and a fresh OS installation is needed.

Re:Uh Oh

[mc1138]

They're actually going to use pirated navigation software... and charge you full price!

Re:Uh Oh

[Amazing Quantum Man]

Maybe they were hoping that they could meet a hot CIA agent while working at Geek Squad.

Re:Uh Oh

[alc6379]

hell I sat in the back smoking while I worked.

Dude if my computer came back smelling like smoke, I'd be asking for a refund, as well as a replacement of every component that smelled like smoke.

Not that I would need to take any of my machines to a repair shop, but if I did, I'd take it to Geek Squad before I would take it into a place that reeked of smoke in the back room.

Totally willing to be modded off-topic here-- my karma can stand the hit.

17,000 mph sounds like it's fast

[BadAnalogyGuy]

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.

So 17,000mph may sound fast, but given that the satellite itself is traveling the same speed, the astronauts don't really have to think about that.

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:17,000 mph sounds like it's fast

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Do you not change the radio while driving?

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

[Bakkster]

So 17,000mph may sound fast, but given that the satellite itself is traveling the same speed, the astronauts don't really have to think about that.

Of course, there could be debris also moving at 17,000mph... in the opposite direction. Traveling at 34,000mph (relative), even a paint chip can do some serious damage to delicate electronics or the relatively soft astronaut.

Here's hoping everyone stays safe up there.

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

[necro81]

Thankfully, it's not like anyone will need to actively "drive" the shuttle while at the same time repairing the Hubble. There's some station-keeping to do, and the craft's overall health to monitor, but a lot of that can be done by autopilot. There's also about a hundred people at mission control that are doing nothing but driving and checking the shuttle, so the astronauts and do their job.

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

[AndrewNeo]

This is more like changing the car battery.. while driving.

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

[pjt33]

No, he's pointing out that you could repair someone else's car while driving down the road at 85 mph.

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

[Aqualung812]

No this it like changing the car battery while it is on a flatbed truck that someone else is driving, but with BIG EFFING GLOVES on.

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

[mea37]

That is, assuming you carry things with the mass of a piano in your glove box, and wear a space suit while driving.

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.

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

[node159]

Going by the mortality rate (I think its like 4%) being an astronaut is more dangerous than being a solider on active deployment at the moment.

No guts, no glory I say :).

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

[icebrain]

Actually, there are a few satellites in retrograde orbits. Some are nearly polar (sun-synchronous orbits, for example), but others are truly retrograde. I believe Israel does it (even despite the disadvantage of fighting earth's rotation by launching west) because that's the only way they can launch their own stuff without overflying populated areas and/or pissing off unfriendly neighbors.

Foreshadowing

[Agent00Wang]

'We've been training for this for seven years. We can't wait for this to happen.'

Cue heartbreak and disaster.

Re:Foreshadowing

[K. S. Kyosuke]

I think you have misread the title. It reads "Challenges Ahead...", not "Challenger Ahead...".

Best of Luck guys

[twiddlingbits]

This is a heck of an undertaking and I wish the crew all the luck in the world. If something doesn't work or doesn't quite fit it will be interesting to see if NASA has planned workarounds or lets the astronauts engineer on the spot solutions. Duct tape, baling wire and chewing gum have been fully supplied on the STS :) It will be nice to see instrument (WFC3 and COS) upgrades I worked on in 2001-02 finally get installed. I'm not too sure about the 10yrs extra life claim, as some of these upgrades have already been around 5 or more yrs in the powered off state and stored in an inert environment and over time electronics degrade regardless. Last time any of the were powered up was Thermal Test in 2004 so I hope they have done a Power On Self Test before they stashed them on board the STS. I have no idea where this 10 more years of service comes from, as NASA's web site for the mission says "warranty good till 2013" maybe longer. Perhaps this is based on the prior performance of items which far exceeded expectations (See we CAN build good stuff in the USA..just not cheap!) Battery technology has come a long way since the last update so the new batteries should have great power to weight ratio. The upgraded detectors should provide better data gathering but the technology isn't cutting edge as the WFC3 is 2K x 4K (8M) pixels in UV and 1K x1K i(1M) in IR. HST does not operate in the visible light range and images you see are colorized from data gathered from several instruments. Still pretty good data gathering capability and maybe the best we get for a long time as NASA is in such disarry right now who knows if JWST will get up by 2013 as planned.

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)

Ping pong balls on your finger tips

[kulakovich]

Sure it sounds like an easy swap, but imagine trying to do something like changing dipswitches and installing a PCIe card with ping pong balls on your finger tips - even with big clunky milspec connectors, everything you twist tries to twist you, everything you pull tries to pull you. Arduous work at best, and they are doing five 6 hour sessions. Amazing, truly. I hope they have Story Musgrave available for commentary, the man is a national hero in my opinion.

~kulakovich

Why not build another one ...

[Jumperalex]

I'm curious, can anyone tell me why a good, cheap, quick solution to replacing the current Hubble isn't to take that same design + upgrades that are even too complicated to accomplish in space, and launch it? I mean sure it might not be as spiffy as a completely new blank-sheet design but I have to believe it wouldn't cost that much more money, if at all, than a shuttle launch + a shuttle on standbye as a life boat. I mean what am I missing that makes building Hubble-2 a bad option compared to a risky/costly repair mission? It can't take that long to build another.

Re:Why not build another one ...

[mangu]

can anyone tell me why a good, cheap, quick solution to replacing the current Hubble isn't to take that same design + upgrades that are even too complicated to accomplish in space, and launch it?

You're absolutely right and, ironically, it would cost less to launch it with a non-reusable rocket like the Ariane 5. Unfortunately, real life doesn't work like that.

The problems is with that "upgrades" thingie. They would never get a team of experts to agree on a sensible list of upgrades and launch that. There would always be one more thing, one more feature and the final cost would be, well, "astronomical" is the only word that comes to my mind.

Nasa's problem is that they have to be innovative, it's their mission. They can never let good enough alone. If they had just kept making small improvements to their systems, maybe we would have all the space colonies Popular Mechanics predicted fifty years ago by now.

Re:Why not build another one ...

[pnewhook]

As far as I know one of the goals is to attach a deorbit module to Hubble, which is needed to safely end its life, so there has to be this mission anyway.

Actually they are not attaching a full deorbit module, but a docking interface that can be used in the future for a deorbit module to grapple onto.

Re:Last

[JamesP]

Because there won't be much more Space Shuttle missions, it's being retired, and none of the future vehicles can do this kind of visit.

Yes, Orion can dock with the ISS but that's "much easier" than going after Hubble

Geek Squad...

[kannibul]

So, you mean they'll copy off all the space-porn to a central repository and do nothing?

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.

Attach it to the ISS?

[sherriw]

I don't understand why they don't grab Hubble and attach it to the International Space Station? It seems a waste to eventually let a great piece of equipment, into which so much money has been invested, to eventually just drift off into space/crash to earth. Servicing it would be much easier if it was attached to the ISS and we could continue getting stunning images, which I think goes a long way to creating interest in astronomy.

Re:Attach it to the ISS?

[ogre7299]

Sounds nice but it would not work for a few reason.

1. The orbits are very different, Hubble is higher and at a different inclination.

2. The sharp images need excellent stability of the spacecraft. Hubble's resolution of 0.1" is the equivalent to spotting a dime 40 miles away. Astronauts and all the equipment running on the ISS would cause lots ot stability problems for sharp imaging.

Re:Attach it to the ISS?

[pnewhook]

I don't understand why they don't grab Hubble and attach it to the International Space Station? It seems a waste to eventually let a great piece of equipment, into which so much money has been invested, to eventually just drift off into space/crash to earth.

Nice idea but it's physically impossible to do this with the shuttle. Even with no payload, the fuel required to shift the shuttles orbit when it's at Hubble to be able to rendezvous with the ISS is almost equal to the mass of the space shuttle itself. It simply can't be done. Thats why there's a second shuttle being prepped for launch in case there's a problem with Atlantis - the ISS cannot be used as a safe haven because it cannot reach it.

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.

T minus 140 minutes

[T Murphy]

If you aren't already, follow the mission on the nasa website http://www.nasa.gov/

Re:Doomed

[MachineShedFred]

It's a very tricky thing to get to Hubble. It's orbit and inclination puts it in a position that takes roughly half of Shuttle's fuel to get to it. They burn a bit wrong, and they're screwed; or perhaps never get to Hubble in the first place.

Either way, if they get there, and have a Columbia-type event with foam / ice / etc, the ISS is not an option as a lifeboat - they couldn't get there with the amount of fuel they have.

This mission is as dangerous as it gets in Earth orbit (currently).