Herschel and Planck join Hubble in space

William Atkins
Friday, 15 May 2009 18:40

Science - Space

Over on the U.S. side of space exploration, the crew of the STS-125 repair mission to the Hubble Space Telescope completed their first spacewalk on Thursday, May 14, 2009.

Two spacewalking astronauts replaced Hubble’s existing Wide Field Camera with a new $132 million Wide Field Camera 3. They had a few problems with the transfer when one of the bolts stuck on the old camera.

Luckily, a checklist of possible contingency plans found one that worked and the bolt finally was loosened and the new camera installed.

At a NASA press conference later in the day, Hubble senior scientist David Leckrone stated, “There were tense moments during that activity. I don't normally reveal my age, and I'm not going to here, but I can tell you I'm five years older now than I was when I came into work this morning."  [CBS News: “Hubble Repair Poses Daunting Challenge”]

The two spacewalkers also replaced a defective science data-handling unit that broke down on Hubble in the fall of 2008 (which delayed the mission from launching) and installed a docking ring so that a robotic spacecraft can eventually make a controlled de-orbit of Hubble when it finally has ended its useful life.

For more information on the Hubble repair mission, go to the iTWire article “Follow STS-125 crew as they service Hubble.”

All in all, May 14, 2009 was a very eventful day for space science and our continuing exploration of outer space, our final frontier.