Mission Accomplished: Leaving Hubble Better Than Ever
Image above: Banks of trees and bushes provide a frame for the launch of space shuttle Atlantis from Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Image credit: NASA/Sandra Joseph-Kevin O'Connell
Image above: STS-125 Mission Specialist Andrew Feustel navigates near the Hubble Space Telescope on the end of the remote manipulator system arm, controlled from inside Atlantis' crew cabin. Mission Specialist John Grunsfeld signals to his crewmate from just a few feet away. Image credit: NASA
Image above: In one of the most detailed astronomical images ever produced, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured an unprecedented look at the Orion Nebula in January 2006. More than 3,000 stars of various sizes appear in this image. Image credit: NASA
Image above: With Atlantis in the background, the STS-125 astronauts stand on Runway 22 at Edwards Air Force Base in California after landing. From left, they are Mission Specialist Mike Massimino, Pilot Gregory C. Johnson, Commander Scott Altman and Mission Specialists Megan McArthur, John Grunsfeld, Andrew Feustel and Michael Good. Image credit: NASA/Carla Thomas, EAFB
Why is Hubble important?
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is fulfilling the hopes astronomers long held for a large, optically superb telescope orbiting above Earth's distorting atmosphere and providing uniquely clear and deep views of the cosmos.
The mission's major upgrades to Hubble and what they provide:
Cosmic Origins Spectrograph - The most sensitive spectrograph ever flown on Hubble, the new instrument will peer further into the universe than ever before in the near and far ultraviolet ranges.
Advanced Camera for Surveys - Now repaired, it's one of Hubble's primary cameras, which stopped working in 2007. It's responsible for some of the most famous images from Hubble.
Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph - Inoperable since 2004, the repaired instrument reveals information about planets, comets, stars and galaxies.
Science Instrument Command and Data Handling System - Replacement of the unit that failed in September 2008, returns full function for sending information and receiving commands.
Fine Guidance Sensor 2 - Replaced, it is one of three sensors that help point and lock the telescope on targets.
Rate Sensor Units - The six new gyroscopes in these units work with the Fine Guidance Sensors to help precisely point the telescope.
Battery Module Units - Replaced, they power Hubble when the solar arrays are out of the sun's reach.
05.29.09
Mission Accomplished: Leaving Hubble Better Than Ever:
Take one space shuttle, seven highly trained astronauts, tons of equipment, and one legendary orbiting telescope and you have the 5.3 million-mile odyssey that was the final servicing mission for NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.
After months of training and a seven-month postponement, the STS-125 crew's mission got under way with an on-time launch into a brilliant-blue Florida sky. The May 11, 2009, liftoff of space shuttle Atlantis took place at 2:01 p.m. EDT from Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. As if to say, "Come on up!" the 19-year-old Hubble was passing directly over Kennedy at the time of the launch. The mission ended later than planned at the backup landing site, Edwards Air Force Base in California. Lingering tropical rain in Florida produced three consecutive days of wave-offs at Kennedy before Atlantis made an 11:39 a.m. EDT touchdown at Edwards on May 24.
Veteran astronaut Scott Altman commanded this final space shuttle mission to Hubble, with Gregory C. Johnson as pilot. Mission specialists included veteran spacewalkers John Grunsfeld and Mike Massimino, and first-time space fliers Andrew Feustel, Michael Good and Megan McArthur, who served as flight engineer.
The tasks ahead of the crew were monumental: conduct spacewalks on five consecutive days that would leave the telescope upgraded and sending back even more spectacular images well into the next decade.
To mitigate the risk to the crew should Atlantis sustain damage on ascent or during the mission, space shuttle Endeavour was stationed at Kennedy's Launch Pad 39B as a standby rescue vehicle. A unique risk was the orbit in which Hubble resides. It contains a higher level of debris that potentially could have struck Atlantis during the mission. Another factor was the lack of "safe haven" normally provided by the International Space Station on other missions.
Both before and after the capture and servicing of Hubble, the astronauts conducted careful inspections of Atlantis' exterior using the shuttle's 50-foot-long orbiter boom sensor system attached to its 49-foot-long robotic arm. No significant damage from either launch or the days in space was found. Once mission managers gave Atlantis a clean bill of health, Endeavour was released from its standby duties.
The heart of the servicing mission -- the capture of Hubble, five spacewalks and release of the refurbished telescope -- spanned flight days three through nine. By the end of the last spacewalk, all the mission objectives to improve Hubble's view of the universe and extend its life had been accomplished.
Two days after launch, Atlantis caught up to Hubble 350 miles above Earth. It was up to Altman and Johnson to bring the shuttle close enough to the telescope so that McArthur could use the robotic arm to capture it and gently place it on a rotating work stand in the payload bay. From there, the pairs of spacewalkers would conduct their work.
Both Grunsfeld and Massimino had been to Hubble before, and each was paired with a first-time spacewalker. Grunsfeld teamed with Feustel on the first, third and fifth spacewalks and Massimino worked with Good during the other two.
Each spacewalk was planned to last about 6 1/2 hours, but most lasted between seven and eight hours.
Here's the breakdown of the marathon spacewalks:
First Spacewalk: Grunsfeld and Feustel installed the 900-pound Wide Field Camera 3, replaced the failed Science Instrument Command and Data Handling Unit, and installed the Soft Capture Mechanism, plus three latch kits to make the remaining servicing easier. Spacewalk time: seven hours and 20 minutes.
Second Spacewalk: Massimino and Good replaced all three Rate Sensor Units, each containing two gyroscopes, and also replaced a 460-pound Battery Module Unit. Spacewalk time: seven hours and 56 minutes
Third Spacewalk: Grunsfeld and Feustel installed the new Cosmic Origins Spectrograph and repaired the Advanced Camera for Surveys. Spacewalk time: six hours and 36 minutes.
Forth Spacewalk: Massimino and Good replaced a power supply board in the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph using special tools developed for this mission. Spacewalk time: eight hours and two minutes.
Fifth Spacewalk: Grunsfeld and Feustel replaced another of Hubble's 460-pound Battery Module Units, removed and replaced Fine Guidance Sensor 2, and installed New Outer Blanket Layers on the exterior of three bays of the telescope. Spacewalk time: seven hours and two minutes.
While not without some troublesome moments, the spacewalkers overcame any difficulties to accomplish all the repairs and upgrades of the challenging mission. An onboard IMAX camera captured their work for a Hubble 3-D movie due to debut in 2010.
The days before landing provided an opportunity for the crew to have some needed off-duty time, as well as a chance to speak to U.S. President Barack Obama, the crew orbiting on the International Space Station, reporters back on Earth, and to testify before a U.S. Senate committee -- a first-time event from space.
At the completion of the final spacewalk, the moment came when human hands had touched Hubble for the last time. The STS-125 crew left the telescope ready to dazzle the world for years to come, with more scientific discoveries and stunning images now possible because of its improved view that stretches from our solar system to the far reaches of the universe.
Cheryl L. Mansfield
NASA's John F. Kennedy Space Center
A Ghost Remains
This composite image shows a small region of the Chandra Deep Field North. The diffuse blue object near the center of the image is believed to be a cosmic 'ghost' generated by a huge eruption from a supermassive black hole in a distant galaxy. This X-ray ghost, a.k.a. HDF 130, remains after powerful radio waves from particles traveling away from the black hole at almost the speed of light, have died off. HDF 130 is more than 10 billion light years away and existed at a time 3 billion years after the Big Bang, when galaxies and black holes were forming at a high rate. Near the center of the X-ray ghost is a radio point source indicating the presence of a growing supermassive black hole.
NASA Releases Interactive 3-D Views of Space Station, New Mars Rover
05.07.09
PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA released an interactive, 3-D photographic collection of internal and external views of the International Space Station and a model of the next Mars rover on Thursday, May 7.
NASA and Microsoft's Virtual Earth team developed the online experience with hundreds of photographs and Microsoft's photo imaging technology called Photosynth. Using a click-and-drag interface, viewers can zoom in to see details of the space station's modules and solar arrays or zoom out for a more global view of the complex.
"Photosynth brings the public closer to our spaceflight equipment and hardware," said Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for Space Operations at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "The space station pictures are not simulations or graphic representations but actual images taken recently by astronauts while in orbit. Although you're not flying 220 miles above the Earth at 17,500 miles an hour, it allows you to navigate and view amazing details of the real station as though you were there."
The software uses photographs from standard digital cameras to construct a 3-D view that can be navigated and explored online.
"This stunning collection of photographs using Microsoft's Photosynth interactive 3-D imaging technology provides people around the world with an exciting new way to explore the space station and learn about NASA's upcoming Mars Science Laboratory mission," said S. Pete Worden, director of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. "This collaboration with Microsoft offers the public the opportunity to participate in future exploration using this innovative technology."
The Mars rover imagery gives viewers an opportunity to preview the hardware of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory, currently being assembled for launch to the Red Planet in 2011.
"We are making this enhanced viewing experience available from the Mars Science Laboratory project because we're eager for the public to share in the excitement that's building for this mission," said Fuk Li, manager of NASA's Mars Exploration Program at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
NASA's Photosynth collection can be viewed at http://www.nasa.gov/photosynth .
The NASA images also can be viewed on Microsoft's Virtual Earth Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/virtualearth .
While roaming through different components of the station, the public also can join in a scavenger hunt. NASA has a list of items that can be found in the Photosynth collection. These items include a station crew patch, a spacesuit and a bell that is traditionally used to announce the arrival of a visiting spacecraft. Clues to help in the hunt will be posted on NASA's Facebook page and @NASA on Twitter. To access these sites, visit http://www.nasa.gov/collaborate .
NASA astronaut Sandra Magnus took the internal images of the space station during the 129 days she lived aboard the complex. She photographed the station's exterior while aboard the space shuttle Discovery, which flew her back to Earth in March. The rover images were taken of a full-scale model in a Mars-simulation testing area at JPL. Photosynth has multiple potential benefits for NASA. Engineers can use it to examine hardware, and astronauts can use it for space station familiarization training.
Photosynth software allows the combination of up to thousands of regular digital photos of a scene to present a detailed 3-D model of a subject, giving viewers the sensation of smoothly gliding around the scene from every angle. A collection can be constructed using photos from a single source or multiple sources. The NASA Photosynth collection also includes shuttle Endeavour preparing for its STS-118 mission in August 2008.
For more information about the space station, visit http://www.nasa.gov/station . For more information about the Mars Science Laboratory, visit http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl . JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington.
Media contacts: Guy Webster 1-818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov
Michael Mewhinney 1-650-604-3937
Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
michael.s.mewhinney@nasa.gov
John Yembrick 1-202-358-1100
Headquarters, Washington
john.yembrick-1@nasa.gov
2009-080
Parachute Opening During Tests for Mars Science Laboratory
04.22.09
Testing during March and April 2009 inside the world's largest wind tunnel, at NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., qualified the parachute for NASA's next Mars rover.
The parachute for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission, to be launched in 2011 and land on Mars in 2012, is the largest ever built to fly on an extraterrestrial mission.
This image shows the qualification-test parachute beginning to open a few seconds after it was launched from a mortar into an 80-mile-per-hour (36-meter-per-second) wind.
The parachute uses a configuration called disk-gap-band. It has 80 suspension lines, measures more than 50 meters (165 feet) in length, and opens to a diameter of nearly 16 meters (51 feet). Most of the orange and white fabric is nylon, though a small disk of heavier polyester is used near the vent in the apex of the canopy due to higher stresses there.
Pioneer Aerospace, South Windsor, Conn., built the parachutes for testing and for flying on the Mars Science Laboratory. The wind tunnel used for the testing is part of the National Full-Scale Aerodynamics Complex, operated by the Arnold Engineering Development Center of the U.S. Air Force. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., is building and testing the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Expedition 20 Lifts Off
Expedition 20 Lifts Off
Flight Engineers Roman Romanenko, Frank De Winne and Robert Thirsk of the 20th International Space Station crew launched in their Soyuz TMA-15 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 6:34 a.m. EDT Wednesday, May 27, 2009, to begin a six-month stay in space.
Expedition 20 will mark the start of six-person crew operations aboard the International Space Station. All five of the international partner agencies--NASA, the Russian Federal Space Agency, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency--will be represented on orbit for the first time.
Image Credit: ESA/CSA/NASA/Stephane Corvaja
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_1374.html
Chaad Tara
Top Story
NASA Details Plans for Lunar Exploration Robotic Missions
At Astrotech Space Operations Facility in Titusville, Fla., Using a suite of seven instruments, LRO will help identify safe landing sites for future human explorers, locate potential resources, characterize the radiation environment and test new technology. LCROSS will seek a definitive answer about the presence of water ice at the lunar poles. LCROSS will use the spent second stage Atlas Centaur rocket in an unprecedented way that will culminate with two spectacular impacts on the moon's surface.
Atlantis Lands After Completing Successful Hubble Repair Mission
NASA Managers Praise the STS-125 Mission and Crew
Space shuttle Atlantis landed at Edwards Air Force Base in California at 11:39 a.m. EDT, completing a 13-day journey of approximately 5.3 million miles in space.
During a press conference held at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Associate Administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate Ed Weiler said, "Now, and only now can we declare this mission a total success -- the astronauts are safely on the ground."
Weiler called NASA's Hubble Space Telescope the great comeback story. He said the public continues to be captivated by the telescope's images of the universe and he hopes to see Hubble operate into its third decade of service.
NASA Launch Integration Manager Mike Moses agreed that this was a fantastic mission. "It's good to have Atlantis back here on the ground," said Moses. He also said the crew did a great job trying to get the shuttle back to Kennedy, even though the weather wouldn't cooperate.
Mike Leinbach, NASA space shuttle launch director, congratulated the STS-125 crew and also commended the crew members who were ready and standing by in case space shuttle Endeavour was needed for a rescue mission.
He also said NASA still is targeting June 13 for Endeavour's mission to the International Space Station.
Tricky Repair of Camera Goes Well for Astronauts
Published: May 16, 2009
So what was all the fuss about?
After two days of tense spacewalks drawn out by balky bolts and badly fitting equipment, the astronauts aboard the space shuttleAtlantis on Saturday breezed through the trickiest and most delicate job of their 11-day mission to the Hubble Space Telescope: fixing a camera that had not been designed to be repaired in space.
Working as calmly as if they were in shirt sleeves in the basement rather than wearing the equivalent of boxing gloves and sailing through space at five miles per second, John M. Grunsfeld and Andrew J. Feustel conducted “brain surgery” on the Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys. They unscrewed screws not meant to be unscrewed and yanked circuit boards, finishing in less than three hours a job that had been allotted nearly five hours and two spacewalks.
Even the most optimistic members of the team had warned that repairing the camera was a long shot. Dr. Grunsfeld, already respected for his Hubble fix-it endeavors on two earlier missions, said before the flight that this would be a nail-biter.
When he began to remove screws almost an hour ahead of schedule, gasps and cheers broke out in the cabin of Atlantis.
“I don’t think real brain surgeons say ‘Yahoo’ every time they pull something out,” Dr. Grunsfeld said.
“Maybe they should,” replied Col. Michael T. Good of the Air Force, who was orchestrating events from inside Atlantis.
The day’s success raised the repair team’s confidence that it would succeed on Sunday, when similar surgery will be tried on another ailing instrument, the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph.
It was, as Scott D. Altman, the shuttle’s commander, said Saturday morning as the astronauts set out, “a great day for a spacewalk.”
Dr. Grunsfeld was on his second spacewalk of this mission and his seventh over all, every one in the name of the Hubble. Dr. Feustel was making his second spacewalk. On Thursday, the pair overcame a stuck bolt to replace the most ancient of the Hubble’s cameras, the wide-field camera No. 2, with a new version.
Dr. Grunsfeld and Dr. Feustel warmed up for the main event by installing on the Hubble a new spectrograph, the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph.
Spectrographs break down light into its constituent wavelengths, allowing astronomers to discern the composition, temperature and motions of celestial objects. The Hubble’s astronomers hope to use the instrument to trace tendrils of gas that stretch through the universe like a spider web, connecting galaxies.
The new spectrograph went into a slot occupied for the last 16 years by a box of corrective lenses known as the Corrective Optics Space Telescope Axial Replacement system. When it was installed in the space telescope in 1993, it provided special lenses that folded like a shower rod and took the blur out of the Hubble’s flawed vision. But all of the Hubble’s instruments now have their own correction optics, and Costar is headed for theSmithsonian Institution.
The advanced camera was a workhorse until its demise in 2007, with some of the Hubble’s most famous pictures to its credit, including the one in 2004 called Ultra Deep Field, which showed galaxies forming only 800 million years after the Big Bang.
Engineers were planning three hours’ worth of tests overnight to make sure the camera was repaired.
When it conked out in 2007, engineers said it was unlikely that the camera could be fixed. Not only was it not designed to be taken apart by astronauts wearing boxing gloves, and some parts of it were inaccessible, but the astronauts already had their hands full training to repair a spectrograph that had also not been designed to be tinkered with in space. That work will be the highlight of the spacewalk on Sunday.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/science/space/17hubble.html?_r=1&ref=science
Posts
