Hubble Overhaul Mission Delayed Until October 8
The Hubble overhaul mission for August has been cancelled for the space shuttle Atlantis and its crew of seven, instead shooting for October 8, 2008. The Hubble Space Telescope’s five week cancellation is due to external fuel tank delays, according to NASA mission managers. NASA also has set a new date for the space shuttle Endeavour and its supply mission, from October 16 to November 10. But so far, no cancellations are in effect for the space shuttle Discovery, May 31, to deliver and install Japan’s lab, Kibo, to the International Space Station. So far, so good anyway.
Taking first things first, the Hubble Space Telescope needs servicing—no doubt about it. And since the Columbia’s accident in 2003, NASA has focused on not only safety for the space shuttle fleet but also pushed with an early retirement for it. All have put the Hubble on the back burner, with its instruments hitting the skids as we speak, “needing an orbital boost to survive long enough for its replacement to be launched in 2013″. Of course, NASA this year has decided that a final repair mission is now feasible, but the fact that much-needed funding is now available and more funding for the 2009 budget is coming makes everything look rosier. The announcement was made at the American Astronomical Society’s winter meeting on January 8, 2008, and now the money has been approved. Cool!!
There will be six space walks planned for the repair, with some just plain ol’ basic hardware repair, including the scheduled gyroscopes and new batteries—with the Advanced Camera for Surveys on the schedule since it went down last fall. Unfortunately, it was considered the most heaviest booked instrument before that happened, performing broad sweeps of the universe, used for identifying supernovae and doing studies for dark matter. Meanwhile, the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph is being repaired also—used to gather spectra from anywhere in the universe, such as stars to the entire galaxies at the atomic level. Expanding the Hubble’s capabilities, two instruments are being replaced—the new Cosmic Origins Spectrograph and the Wide Field Camera WFC3, mapping the history of the Universe, which involves dark matter and energy.
This entry was posted on Saturday, May 24th, 2008 at 4:52 pm and is filed under Space Agency News, Technical Concerns. 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.
