2008 Hubble Launching Questionable
NASA’s final shuttle flight to overhaul the Hubble Space Telescope will not take place until its safe, according to the agency’s science chief. The agency’s planned August 2008 launch to Hubble with seven astronauts abroad the Atlantis Orbit will depend on the success of three other shuttle flights due to lift off in the next few months. This announcement was made by Alan Stern, associate administrator for NASA’s science mission directorate.
As we all know, a new European laboratory must be taken by the shuttle to the International Space Station. But because of problems with the fuel sensor system since December the launch plan will be no earlier than February 7, 2008, NASA officials have said. “Our watch word in all this is safety”, Stern said during a meeting at the American Astronomical Society in Austin, Texas. “Hubble is perfectly capable of taking care of itself, and if the servicing mission needs to be in September, October, later in the year-whenever we’re going to do it the safest way we can as an agency. Safety is going to be first.”
Atlantis and its STS-12S astronaut crew will fly the fifth servicing mission to Hubble since 1990 when the laboratory’s launch occurred. The mission has been named SM-4. However, there are risks involved during the mission, because Hubble-bound space flyers won’t be able to return to the space station if major damage should happen to the space craft. This was not a problem with shuttle astronauts on previous ISS construction flights.
If any serious problems would occur on the Atlantis, the NASA officials have said that another NASA shuttle will be ready to launch a rescue mission within 25 days of the problem. After the loss of the seven astronauts and the space shuttle Columbia during re-entry in 2003, the agency had cancelled the Hubble servicing mission. The Columbia accident was caused by an errant piece of the fuel tank foam damaging the left wing-mounted heat shield on the Columbia–shuttle flights had resumed in 2005.
Since that time, NASA engineers and astronauts have repeatedly proven their ability to insure orbiter heat shield health by using new inspection techniques on seven successful missions. “The decision not to fly the Hubble servicing mission following the tragic loss of Columbia was based on an assessment of risk, given the circumstances at the time”, said astronaut John Grunsfeld, lead spacewalker for the upcoming Hubble servicing mission.
This entry was posted on Thursday, January 17th, 2008 at 6:54 am and is filed under Space Agency News, The Gear to Get There. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
