Hubble Astronauts Awed by New Images

The astronauts who repaired the Hubble Space Telescope earlier this year were on hand for the unveiling of the iconic observatory?s first new images today, describing a sense of awe over the pictures and relief that all of the telescope's instruments were working properly.

Being on hand for the image release was "a tremendous treat," said Scott Altman, commander of the 13-day mission that repaired and revamped Hubble in May.

"It was just a very emotional feeling to look at those photos and be transported those billions of light-years away ? and knowing that we played a part in making that possible," Altman added.

During that mission, Altman and his colleagues installed two new instruments, the Wide Field Camera 3 and a new super-sensitive spectrograph, repaired the Hubble's main Advanced Camera for Surveys and a versatile imaging spectrograph, and gave the telescope new gyroscopes and batteries.

Much of the repair work was never intended to be done in space and the astronauts spent time "wondering if the things we were trying to do up there were going to be successful," Altman said.

But the astronauts had to wait for engineers to finish three months of checkout and calibration before they knew for sure that Hubble's systems were working properly.

"I am so grateful that it's working and that I didn't break anything," joked Mike Massimino. (One of the rules for the mission was "don't break the Hubble," crew member John Grunsfeld said.) But his team members joked back that he did actually break something: When a bolt holding a handrail in place refused to budge, even with specialized tools, Massimino resorted to ripping it off with brute strength. He showed the bolt and the handrail at a press conference with the crew at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., today after the image unveiling.

When Grunsfeld first saw the new images taken with the instruments he helped to repair he thought simply, "Wow."

"I don?t think anybody could have ever imagined we'd have such a powerful telescope in orbit as we have now with Hubble," Grunsfeld added.

Though the team was sad to leave Hubble behind ? and there was some debate among them as to who was the last to touch the telescope, with astronaut Megan McArthur putting in her bid as the last to move the telescope with the shuttle's robotic arm ? all of the astronauts were excited to see what the new-and-improved Hubble would do in the future.

It is "the beginning of the really great adventure, which is when the science comes out," Grunsfeld said.

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