The Last Mission to the Hubble Telescope

The Hubble has given us pictures of merging galaxies, asteroids, new galaxies, the rings around Uranus, and other planets. It has given scientists insights into star formation and star death. The Hubble Deep Field has produced pictures of distant galaxies nearly ten billion years ago. Hubble has produced information on Black Holes and Gamma-Ray bursts, as well as other scientific mysteries of the Universe.

In fact, the news of pictures of distant space taken by the Hubble Telescope has now become a common occurrence. In fact, a recently released Hubble picture by NASA called "Clash Of Clusters" has provided new scientific evidence of the mysterious material in the Universe known as "dark matter".

"Clash Of Clusters" is just the latest Hubble success story in a remarkable record that has now spanned seventeen years. Over the years, the pictures that the Hubble Telescope has stored and transmitted to Earth have helped resolve some long standing questions in astronomy.

Hubble is also responsible for the dating of the age of the Universe at 12-14 billion years. This is a much closer date than the 10 to 20 billion year range that scientists estimated prior to the Hubble launch.

Indeed, the Hubble Telescope's contribution to our understanding of the Universe has been remarkable. That is why the last NASA mission to the Hubble Telescope is a final opportunity for NASA to revitalize the Telescope. In fact, the final servicing mission is intended to enhance Hubble's capabilities until it is replaced by its successor, the James Webb Telescope in about five years.

The NASA Mission is currently scheduled for launch on October 8, 2008. Veteran Shuttle Commander Scott Altman and astronauts Megan McArthur, Michael Good, Gregory C. Johnson, John Grunsfeld, Michael Massimino, and Andrew Feuste will use the Atlantis Orbiter for the Hubble Mission.

The astronauts will transport 23,000 pounds of hardware to the Hubble Telescope. The eleven-day shuttle mission will feature five dangerous space walks. The space walks will be necessary so that astronauts can install two new science instruments, the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph and Wide Field Camera 3 to enhance the telescope.

The Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS), is a new spectroscope that will study the large-scale structure of the Universe and how galaxies, stars, and planets form and evolve. The Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), is a new camera that will study early and distant galaxies that are currently beyond Hubble’s reach, as well as galaxies in our own cosmic neighborhood.

In addition to the new equipment, another important goal of the Mission is to repair equipment that is out of service and in need of repair. During the Mission, the ACS and STIS scientific instruments are scheduled to be repaired in place on the Hubble Telescope. The repair of the equipment will be a difficult aspect of the Servicing Mission since the equipment was not designed for complicated repairs in space.

The Hubble Telescope will also receive a new set of gyroscopes that will stabilize the telescope, and batteries and thermal blankets will be replaced to extend Hubble's operational life until at least the year 2013.

In addition, a degrading Fine Guidance Sensor unit, one of three aboard Hubble, will be replaced with a refurbished unit to help maintain the telescope's ability to point and focus on astronomical objects throughout the Universe. A successful completion of the Mission will result in the Hubble Telescope's ability to get a wider, more distant, and sharper view of objects.

NASA intends to upgrade the Hubble Telescope, so that it will have more capability than ever before. It is a servicing mission with considerable danger to the astronauts, but one that has the potential to provide science and astronomy with dramatic rewards.

It is NASA's final mission to the remarkable Telescope and the hope is that, with an enhanced Hubble, there will be more amazing pictures and discoveries of the Universe in the years immediately ahead.