From tweets to system tweaks to major instrument upgrades, space shuttle Atlantis is steadily working through the checklist to repair and upgrade the 19-year-old Hubble Space Telescope. If the Atlantis' second week in space goes as well as the first, the shuttle program's final trip to the Hubble will extend the life of the telescope to 2014.The space shuttle Atlantis lifted off from the Kennedy
Space Center
May 11 on an ambitious final 11-day mission to repair and upgrade the Hubble
Space Telescope to keep it operational for at least five more years. So far, so
good.
From tweets to system tweaks to major instrument upgrades, the seven-person
crew of the Atlantis has stayed on course through two of the five total
scheduled spacewalks.
Arriving at the Hubble May 13, astronauts have installed a new wide-field
camera, and replaced the Hubble's six gyroscopes and the telescope's Science
Instrument Command and Data Handling Unit, the computer that sends commands to the
Hubbles science instruments and formats science data for transmission to the
ground.
Still ahead before departing May 19 for a May 21 touchdown on Earth:
installing the COS (Cosmic Origins Spectrograph),
a new power supply circuit board and other instrument upgrades. The COS
is an instrument that breaks light into its component colors, revealing information
about the object emitting the light. COS sees exclusively in ultraviolet light
and will improve the Hubble's ultraviolet sensitivity at least 10 times, and up
to 70 times when observing extremely faint objects.
Combined with the new wide-field camera, which will allow the Hubble to take
large-scale, extremely clear and detailed pictures over a very wide range of
colors, the COS will complement the scientific instruments already on the
telescope, in particular the workhorse Advanced Camera for Surveys and the
Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph.
"After we get done with it, it's not an old telescope," NASA Project
Scientist David Lekrone told CBS News. "Every subsystem that needs refurbishment is being
refurbished, and it's getting a new complement of instruments. So the only part
of it that's old is the optical metering structure and the glass. And the glass
doesn't care. When they're done, it really is not an old telescope, it's a new
telescope."
On Atlantis' return trip home, NASA officials will be keeping a particularly
close watch on Atlantis' heat shields, which suffered minor damage from launch
debris. NASA said Atlantis suffered minor dents along an area of about 21
inches spanning four of the shuttle's thermal tiles located on the starboard
side of the spacecraft.
In what has become a standard routine for shuttle flights since the 2003 Columbia
accident that killed seven crew members due to a damaged heat shield, the
Atlantis crew spent the day before reaching the Hubble inspecting the heat
shields with sensors attached to a boom. The crew reported they found a scratch
across several heat-resistant ceramic tiles.
"Everybody is feeling pretty good that it's not something potentially
serious," NASA astronaut Joe Burbank told Atlantis commander Scott Altman.
Flight Director Tony Ceccacci said that upon an initial look, damage found
during the inspection appeared to be minor and likely not a concern, but he
said experts will analyze it, as is normal, to be certain the shuttle's heat
shielding is in good shape.
And, finally, Atlantis' first week in space also featured the first tweet from
outer space. Although the crew is unable to connect to the Internet while in
space, astronaut Mike Massimino e-mailed a message to command control to be
tweeted.
"From orbit: Launch was awesome!! I am feeling great, working hard, &
enjoying the magnificent views, the adventure of a lifetime has begun!"
wrote Massimino.