Seven NASA
astronauts are eagerly looking forward to a risky, but pivotal, shuttle flight
to the Hubble Space Telescope this fall.
Veteran
shuttle commander Scott Altman and his crew are preparing to launch in early
October aboard the Atlantis orbiter on what is expected to be NASA's final
service call on the iconic space observatory. The telescope passed its 100,000th orbit
around Earth on Monday.
"What we
want to do, though, is refurbish the Hubble so that it can operate as long as
possible," Altman said during a series of NASA interviews released on Monday.
"We're going to add some new instruments ... and then we're going to go in and
kind of do internal surgery on some instruments that are already in the
telescope."
Joining
Altman on the mission
to Hubble will be shuttle pilot Gregory C. Johnson, mission specialist
Megan McArthur and spacewalkers Andrew Feustel, Michael Good, John Grunsfeld
and Michael Massimino. With the exception of Hubble flight veterans Altman,
Grunsfeld and Massimino, the rest of Atlantis's astronauts are making their
first spaceflight.
But their
mission is not without risk. Unlike all of NASA's shuttle missions since the
2003 Columbia tragedy, Atlantis is not headed for the International Space
Station, where astronauts can take refuge and await rescue if their shuttle's
heat shield is critically damaged.
The Hubble
telescope circles the Earth in a higher orbit and different inclination than
the space station, so Atlantis astronauts will not be able to reach the orbital
laboratory if the shuttle is damaged.
Instead,
NASA is priming
a second space shuttle, Atlantis's sister ship Endeavour, and a
four-astronaut crew for a rescue mission that the agency hopes it will never
need. Altman and his crew will carry 25 days' worth extra of food and other supplies
along with Hubble's new instruments as a precaution in case they should need an
orbital rescue.
Under the
plan, Endeavour would rendezvous with Atlantis within a 25-day window, grapple
the orbiter with its robotic arm, and then astronauts would stage a series of
spacewalks to transfer from the stricken ship. The return trip aboard Endeavour
would be a bit cozy, with 11 astronauts in a vehicle that has at most hosted
eight, the astronauts said.
"The whole
concept of going somewhere where you don't have a place to shelter, like the
space station, was a little different," Altman said, adding that some dedicated
engineers came up with what he believes is a good contingency plan. "It's a
very low probability of an event, but I'm glad that there's a relatively robust
plan to deal with it if it did happen."
Hubble's
coming overhaul
NASA
initially canceled Atlantis's STS-125 mission to Hubble after the tragic 2003
loss of Columbia and its seven-astronaut crew. It revived the
service call, first with a robotic mission and later with a crewed flight
in 2006, following widespread disapproval from scientists and the public.
Despite the
added risk of flying to the space telescope with out the space station as a
safe haven, Atlantis astronauts said their flight is more than worth it. The
new mission, NASA's fifth and last shuttle flight to Hubble since its April
1990 launch, is expected to extend
the telescope's life through at least 2013 and leave it more powerful than
ever before.
"The Hubble
Space Telescope is more than remarkable," said Grunsfeld, an
astronomer-turned-astronaut who is making his fifth career spaceflight and
third visit to the orbital observatory. "It has answered just so many of those
fundamental questions that people have been asking about the cosmos since
people were able to ask questions."
Grunsfeld
and his fellow spacewalkers Massimino, Feustel and Good will perform five
back-to-back spacewalks to replace Hubble's batteries and gyroscopes, attach
docking equipment, fix equipment never designed for in-space repairs, and install
a new camera and other instruments. McArthur will wield Atlantis's robotic arm
to grapple Hubble so astronauts can begin their orbital work.
"I think it
will be a pretty special moment for all of us," McArthur said of leaving Hubble
after the service call is complete. "I don't really know how that's going to feel."
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