By John Borland January 08, 2008 | 12:19:32 PMCategories: Space
NASA officials said Tuesday that the planned August 2008 shuttle mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope would include the installation of a pair of new scientific instruments, as well as an attempt to fix two older modules that produced important work before failing.
The planned 11-day, seven-astronaut mission will feature five spacewalks, officials said, speaking at the winter meeting of the American Astronomical Society today. Along with the new instruments, an assortment of gyroscopes, thermal blankets and batteries will be installed, aiming to extend the telescope's operating life until 2013.
In a statement, planned mission lead John Grunsfeld said his team is already at work preparing.
"As both an astronaut and an astronomer, the opportunity to go back to Hubble is more than a dream come true," said John Grunsfeld, who will be the mission's lead spacewalker. "This mission promises to be quite challenging. NASA has put together the most experienced Hubble crew ever, with three Hubble veterans. The crew and mission team are in full throttle training, looking forward to launch and the hard work of servicing Hubble."
The two devices being repaired include the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) and the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). According to NASA, the ACS was the most-used device on the telescope, before failing last January. The STIS, which helped detect black holes and extra-solar planets, failed several years ago.
The new instruments being installed offer the promise of significant new scientific discoveries, researchers said.
The Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) will be used to examine the "cosmic web," or the large-scale structure of the universe created by the gravity of dark matter, and traced in the formations of galaxies and interstellar gas.
A second device, called the Wide Field Camera 3, or WFC3, will provide a new wide-field and "panchromatic," or many-colored imagine capability to supplement the telescope's other cameras.
Here's David Leckrone, Hubble senior project scientist at NASA's Goddard Flight Center:
"Our two new instruments, plus the hoped-for repairs of STIS and ACS, will give astronomers a full 'tool box' with which to attack some really profound problems, ranging from the nature of dark matter and dark energy, to the chemical composition of the atmospheres of planets around other stars."
UPDATE: As Reuters and others have reported, the original planned August date of the Hubble mission will likely be pushed back by the delays in fixing the faulty fuel gauge that is currently keeping the Atlantis shuttle grounded. Delivery of three modules for the International Space Station have priority, but Hubble's mission will come as soon as possible, officials said.
NASA officials said Tuesday that the planned August 2008 shuttle mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope would include the installation of a pair of new scientific instruments, as well as an attempt to fix two older modules that produced important work before failing.
The planned 11-day, seven-astronaut mission will feature five spacewalks, officials said, speaking at the winter meeting of the American Astronomical Society today. Along with the new instruments, an assortment of gyroscopes, thermal blankets and batteries will be installed, aiming to extend the telescope's operating life until 2013.
In a statement, planned mission lead John Grunsfeld said his team is already at work preparing.
"As both an astronaut and an astronomer, the opportunity to go back to Hubble is more than a dream come true," said John Grunsfeld, who will be the mission's lead spacewalker. "This mission promises to be quite challenging. NASA has put together the most experienced Hubble crew ever, with three Hubble veterans. The crew and mission team are in full throttle training, looking forward to launch and the hard work of servicing Hubble."
The two devices being repaired include the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) and the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). According to NASA, the ACS was the most-used device on the telescope, before failing last January. The STIS, which helped detect black holes and extra-solar planets, failed several years ago.
The new instruments being installed offer the promise of significant new scientific discoveries, researchers said.
The Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) will be used to examine the "cosmic web," or the large-scale structure of the universe created by the gravity of dark matter, and traced in the formations of galaxies and interstellar gas.
A second device, called the Wide Field Camera 3, or WFC3, will provide a new wide-field and "panchromatic," or many-colored imagine capability to supplement the telescope's other cameras.
Here's David Leckrone, Hubble senior project scientist at NASA's Goddard Flight Center:
"Our two new instruments, plus the hoped-for repairs of STIS and ACS, will give astronomers a full 'tool box' with which to attack some really profound problems, ranging from the nature of dark matter and dark energy, to the chemical composition of the atmospheres of planets around other stars."
UPDATE: As Reuters and others have reported, the original planned August date of the Hubble mission will likely be pushed back by the delays in fixing the faulty fuel gauge that is currently keeping the Atlantis shuttle grounded. Delivery of three modules for the International Space Station have priority, but Hubble's mission will come as soon as possible, officials said.
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