Many fans of the Hubble Space Telescope call themselves
"Hubble huggers," but only one means that literally.
NASA astronaut Mike Massimino is getting ready for his
second space shuttle flight to the
orbiting observatory, where he will serve as part of a seven-person team to
upgrade
the popular telescope.
"I do actually get a chance to touch the Hubble and I
can hug it when I get up there," Massimino told SPACE.com in a
phone interview. "Yeah, the Hubble is great."
Massimino and the other members of the shuttle Atlantis's
STS-125 crew, led by commander Scott Altman, are due to lift off May 12. The
astronauts plan an 11-day mission packed
with five spacewalks to repair hardware and install equipment such as a new
camera, gyroscopes and batteries. The upgrades should extend the observatory's
lifespan through at least 2013.
For Massimino, revisiting the telescope will be a trip down
memory lane.
"I'm really looking forward to seeing Hubble
again," he said. "I saw it seven years ago. I think it's going to be
really cool and I think it's going to bring back a lot of memories, and remind
me of emotions I had during the last flight that I forgot about or haven't
thought about in a long time."
The astronaut also flew on the STS-109 Columbia mission to
Hubble in March 2002, his first spaceflight. The upcoming Atlantis mission was
originally scheduled for October 2008, but
was delayed after electronics on Hubble broke.
"You're all set and ready to go, and it's like they
cancelled Christmas," Massimino said of the delays."But in some ways
it's been kind of nice 'cause it's given us some extra time to get things
ready."
Among the last minute additions to the flight plan is the
installation of a replacement for the part that failed last fall.
The seven STS-125 astronauts are taking advantage of what
might be their last weeks on the ground before liftoff by rehearsing their
skills for the busy mission.
"It's going really well," Massimino said. "We
just have a few things we need to brush up on, a couple final runs in the
pool" where astronauts practice spacewalk maneuvers underwater to simulate
the weightlessness of space. "But I think we're ready to go and looking
forward to leaving the planet."
Massimino has been writing about his experiences training
for the mission on Twitter. (Follow him at http://twitter.com/Astro_Mike). He
plans to savor the events of his final visit to Hubble in a way he couldn't
when he was a rookie spaceflyer.
"The first time I think I was actually a little more
nervous — how I would perform in space, what would it be like," he said.
"This time I know how wonderful it can be to view the Earth and the stars,
and how wonderful it is to work in a spacesuit on Hubble. I really want to go
back and do it again."
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