Hubble Repair Mission Concerns
With the change in launching date of NASA’s Hubble Repair Mission and as time approaches, the media is filling the airwaves with questions and concerns on NASA Television. Questions like “are MMODs a major concern” and “why choose a crew member of four instead of two” are approached by the NASA panel regarding the upcoming repair mission. Flight STS-125 experts and professionals are offering many panels online to answer many questions, including NASA Goddard scientists and the Hubble team members.
The servicing operation has a certain criteria for success, with the Hubble being a major milestone for the space agency in rewriting the books on what space is actually about. But is it considered effective for people on Earth who are not involved with space and astronomy? Used in conjunction with other observatories on a global basis, the universe and its evolution is better understood in the field of science—with data having been written by the Hubble in reports and studies for our futurel.
We are now in the “Golden Age of Understanding the Cosmos”, all due to data arriving from the Hubble. This final servicing date will allow the Hubble to operate for a longer basis to better prepare the future for NASA and other space agencies, with technology being improved due to new hardware and repairing techniques. The service mission for the Hubble has evolved over time with much planning for its process. It is different from the previous missions–for one thing, the HST has always been developed to be serviced in the future, to extend its life and ability to deliver updated data—until now.
Upgrading its telescoping has been a given every three years, with the last mission about 6.5 years ago. Modifying the operations to obtain greater life on the Hubble has been the main reason for this extended period, with the hardware content changed. Getting prepared for this year’s mission has been exhaustive, and that is because it will be the very last planned mission to the Hubble, attempting to make it the best it will ever be.
No later servicing missions will be available if this mission is not done right —on the line are: new pieces of equipment, upgrade science capabilities with new instruments, replacement of gyroscopes, insulation repairs in bay areas that are deteriorating, new batteries replace to replace 20-year old ones presently there, new electrical work, etc.-–all have to be done the best in can be during this “one shot mission”.
This entry was posted on Sunday, September 7th, 2008 at 1:40 pm and is filed under Mission History, Space Agency News, Technical Concerns, The Gear to Get There, Uncategorized. 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.
