I meant to bump Deckard's original thread, but it is stuck in the unsorted forum. ____ Deckard's thread This mission will boost some parts of the telescopes' vision x100 and will repair other failing experiments -- can't wait to see the images. God speed. _____ Up and away for final Hubble mission Hang on Hubble, help is on the way. NASA's final shuttle mission to repair and upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope cleared the launch pad at 2:01 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time Monday afternoon – an auspicious beginning to an ambitious 12-day mission. In addition to upgrading two of the observatory's main instruments, the crew will also replace batteries, some gyroscopes, and a telescope the observatory uses to help it remain pointed properly, as well as for science. And spacewalkers will attempt to repair the advanced camera for surveys and the space-telescope imaging spectrograph – two workhorses that currently don't function and that weren't designed for on-orbit repairs. They represent perhaps the most challenging tasks on the crew's to-do list. "We've never tried to repair instruments like this" during a spacewalk, says Ed Weiler, NASA's associate administrator for the science mission directorate. "Putting in new instruments is bad enough, but it's more or less routine," he continues. "Taking things apart and putting in circuit boards when you're an astronaut wearing gloves? It's a little dicey. We'll take our best shot, but let's all remember that these instruments are dead right now. If they don't get fixed, we haven't lost anything." The first major task, however, is to inspect the shuttle Atlantis for any damage to its thermal-protection system that might have occurred during launch. Technicians noticed ice building on one of the umbilical cords linking the orbiter to its main fuel tank before launch. But on further inspection, they found the ice melting in the afternoon heat. Mission controllers detected what appeared to be two pieces of debris falling away as the orbiter shed its solid-rocket motors, and two more pieces fell away later in Atlantis's climb into space. But they did so at an altitude where the atmosphere was so thin that the pieces wouldn't have had much velocity and so would be unlikely to do any damage, according to William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for space operations. Still, astronauts will conduct some 9-1/2 hours worth of inspections to check for launch damage to the heat-absorbing tiles and the carbon materials that protect the leading edge of the wings and tail. On trips to the space station, the shuttle does a flip to present its belly to the station just before docking. This allows the station crew to take detailed photos of the tiles on the orbiter's underside, which get beamed back to Earth for analysis. For this mission, Atlantis's crew will use the orbiter's robotic arm and inspection boom to survey the underside, as well as the rest of the craft's surfaces. If the crew finds irreparable damage, they will continue on to Hubble and complete their work, then head to a lower orbit to await rescue by the shuttle Endeavour, which is currently sitting on Pad 39-B at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida awaiting final preparations for a launch. Mission planners expect Atlantis to reach Hubble just after noon on Wednesday. link
I actually watched this launch go up from the front row of the USAF's shuttle viewing area today. Quite a sight.
No worries, KC. After 3 years, I had forgotten about this one. I'm so pumped that they're actually in space and on their way! Man, it takes time to ramp these missions up. Hard to believe we're about to lose our manned space flight capability for years. Not only is the length of time unknown, but our ability to ferry equipment, parts, people, and supplies is being left to the tender mercies of the Sovie... uh, Mr. Putin. I don't like that idea one damn bit. Anyway, I sure hope the mission is successful. A difficult and dangerous job in high near-earth orbit. If it works, the Hubble should be good for 5+ years, an outstanding achievement.
this is a definitely a big mission, hope it goes well. I think there are only 7 missions left, hard to believe
It is pretty amazing Hubble has last as long as it has especially with the 4 times its had to be serviced. One thing I'm wondering about is that this mission is considered higher risk for the shuttle and I'm wondering why this one is any riskier than previous Hubble repair missions? Is it the age of the shuttle or that on previous missions they didn't fully understand the risks?
This was the problem before they had any missions besides those to the ISS -- they didn't realize little soft pieces of foam could punch gaping holes in the wings when they were moving 500+ mph. The only reason the ISS is 'safe' is because of the rescue craft -- if a big enough chunk came off during lift off it could probable take a large piece of the wing off and jeopardize the crew making it to the ISS. Oh well 7 more missions and we're done with this thing.* *We'll probably have to use it more than just 7 times before the new craft is ready.
It's the age (which is always a risk) and the fact that, as KC pointed out, a rescue mission would be harder to accomplish in this case. After the Columbia accident, NASA directed the shuttle program to have a rescue shuttle in place that would launch in case there was a mission complication (such as tile damage). In this case, the rescue shuttle itself can't "dock" to the ISS and rescue the crew. I don't know the details but I think for this mission, to transfer the crew from the damaged shuttle to the rescue shuttle would require an EVA (float outside!). Also, if this was an ISS mission, there is just more helpful equipment on the ISS that would help buy time if a rescue was necessary or even not require a rescue mission.
The dangers discovered from debris during launch represents only one of the things they're concerned about. Since the last repair mission, there has been a marked increase in orbiting debris, as you can see from the info below. From Wikipedia (not the best source, but I've seen the same info elsewhere): Debris creation events The largest space debris incident in history was the Chinese anti-satellite weapon test on January 11, 2007.[23] The event was estimated to have created more than 2300 pieces (updated 2007-12-13) of trackable debris (approximately golf ball size or larger), over 35,000 pieces 1 cm or larger, and 1 million pieces 1 mm or larger. The debris event is more significant than previous anti-satellite tests in that the debris field has a higher orbit altitude[clarification needed], resulting in deorbit times of 35 years and greater. In June 2007, NASA's Terra environmental spacecraft was the first to be moved in order to prevent impacts from this debris.[24] An event of similar magnitude occurred on February 19, 2007, when a Russian Briz-M booster stage exploded in orbit over Australia. The booster had been launched on February 28, 2006, carrying an Arabsat-4A communication satellite but malfunctioned before it could use all of its fuel. The explosion was captured on film by several astronomers, but due to the path of the orbit the debris cloud has been hard to quantify using radar. Although similar in magnitude, the debris field is at a lower altitude[clarification needed] than the Chinese anti-satellite test and much debris will re-enter the atmosphere in a relatively short time. As of February 21, 2007, over 1,000 fragments had been identified.[25][26] A third breakup event also occurred on 14 February 2007 as recorded by Celes Trak.[27] In 2006, the most breakups occurred since 1993 with eight breakups.[28] Additionally on February 20, 2008, the U.S. launched an SM-3 Missile from the USS Lake Erie specially designed to destroy a defective U.S. spy satellite feared to carry 1,000 pounds of toxic hydrazine fuel. The debris created by this event occurring at about 250 km altitude results in all the debris having a perigee of 250 km or lower. Although the apogee of some debris may be higher due to the explosion, the low perigee altitude will cause all debris to re-enter the atmosphere in a relatively short time period.[29] On Tuesday, February 10, 2009, the retired Kosmos-2251 Russian satellite with a mass of 950-kilograms (2,094 lb) collided 500 miles above Siberia with the Iridium 33 commercial satellite weighing 560-kilograms (1,235 lb) . The collision created a debris cloud; although accurate estimates of the number of pieces of debris are not yet available.[30] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/05/Gabbard_diagram.png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_debris The Chinese anti-satellite test, and the surprising collision between a Russian satellite and a commercial US satellite, have produced a large increase in orbiting debris within a realtively short time. The Russian/US collision was the first of its kind, the odds of two satellites colliding unintentionally being incredibly remote. The China anti-satellite test was more troublesome, being at a higher orbit than most (the Hubble mission is at a higher orbit as well) and being deliberate. I understand the Chinese wanting to test their anti-satellite capability, but in my opinion, conducting a test in an orbit that isn't low enough that most debris would quickly reenter the atmosphere was reckless. This mission shows the value of having manned space flight, a robotic mission doing the same thing being beyond our present capabilities.
Got a few dings on takeoff. _____ Shuttle heat shield damage assessed Engineers at the Johnson Space Center are evaluating a small area of tile damage on the forward part of the shuttle Atlantis' right wing where it joins the ship's fuselage. The nicked tiles, apparently damaged during launch by a debris impact around 106 seconds after liftoff, were spotted Tuesday during a lengthy heat shield inspection by the Atlantis astronauts. LeRoy Cain, chairman of NASA's Mission Management Team, told reporters late Tuesday that engineers are not overly concerned about the damage and probably will not require an additional, "focused" inspection to collect more data. But engineers will continue their assessment overnight to make sure the damage poses no risk to the shuttle. link with photos
This NASA image shows Space Shuttle Atlantis silhouetted during its solar transit, on May 12, 2009. This image was made before Atlantis and the crew of STS-125 grappled the Hubble Space Telescope to begin repairs. Another tough Hubble spacewalk foreseen Mission specialists John Grunsfeld and Drew Feustel of the Space Shuttle Atlantis were scheduled to install a highly sophisticated spectrograph after first removing a box housing hardware that 16 years ago came to the rescue in a bid to repair the Hubble's blurry vision, Florida Today reported. After a long day of spacewalks Friday during which they struggled to replace gyroscopes critical to the Hubble's functioning, Grunsfeld and Feustel were also scheduled Saturday to repair the device's Advanced Camera for Surveys, one of its most widely used features until a power failure crippled it two years ago, the newspaper said. The challenge for the astronauts comes from the fact that the camera was never designed to be serviced in space and fixing it requires spacewalkers to remove 36 tiny screws and replace four delicate electronics boards in a difficult areas, NASA said. "I expected (Friday) to be the hold-your-breath moment, and it's turned out that every day has been hold-your-breath," Hubble Project Scientist Dave Leckrone told Florida Today. link
Fifth straight post in my own thread... must save somehow... Spoiler <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/MK6TXMsvgQg&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/MK6TXMsvgQg&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object> Reread the thread with this playing in the background.
