Astronauts Begin Final Spacewalk To Repair Hubble

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday May 18, 2009 @03:30AM from the wave-while-you're-up-there dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Astronauts John Grunsfield and Andrew Feustel began the fifth and final spacewalk of their Hubble Space Telescope repair mission this morning at 8:20AM. During their spacewalk the two will install the second battery group replacement in an equipment bay above the Wide Field Camera 2 and next to the compartment where the first battery set was installed on the second spacewalk. Each of the battery module weighs 460 pounds and contains three batteries. The batteries provide electrical power to support Hubble's operations during the night when there's no sun to power the solar arrays."

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Watch it live by Audiophyle · 2009-05-18 03:41 · Score: 5, Informative

Check it out on NASA TV if you haven't had the chance yet. Viewing Hubble the way the astronauts see it is a neat experience.
Not above the WFC2 by Zpin · 2009-05-18 03:41 · Score: 5, Informative

It's actually Wide Field Camera 3 now. It has been exchanged in the first spacewalk.
Re:The batteries weigh what? by Jamamala · 2009-05-18 03:55 · Score: 5, Informative

According to my back-of-an-envelope calculations, I get their true weight to be 1729N.

F=GMmr^-2
=G * Mass of earth * mass of box * (Earth's radius + Hubble orbit height)^-2
=(6.67x10^-11 * 5.9742x10^24 * 208.7) * ((6378 + 559)x10^3)^-2
=1729.20 N