NASA's iconic Hubble Space Telescope is poised to make its
long-awaited comeback to observing the cosmos.
After major
surgery conducted earlier this year by space shuttle astronauts and a
rigorous checkup, Hubble has been pronounced to be in good health and ready for
active duty, with its first new images set to be released tomorrow.
The 19-year-old spacecraft, which has wowed astronomers and
the public with spectacular images over the years, had several instruments replaced
and repaired — including a brand new camera — during a 13-day service call
by astronauts aboard the space shuttle Atlantis.
After the astronauts departed, Hubble mission managers began
a months-long, rigorous checkout and calibration phase with all of the space
telescope's new and repaired instruments. They ran into a few hiccups along the
way, with a glitch in the new Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) in
July that caused the team to suspend
operations for the instrument, and another in the new data-handling unit in
mid-June.
"The post [Servicing Mission 4] checkout and
calibration activities (we call it SMOV – Servicing Mission Observatory Verification)
has gone extremely well," said program manager Preston Burch. "We hit
a few bumps along the way (which is no surprise, given the enormous amount of
new equipment installed, and its complexity), but we were able to resolve them
and stay on our original overall schedule."
The checkout procedures were necessary to make sure the
telescope would function properly once it resumed snapping pictures of the
universe. Mission managers did take one break to capture
an image of a rare event, the comet that struck Jupiter in mid-July and
left a dark bruise in the gas giant's roiling atmosphere. That image was taken
with the brand new Wide Field Camera 3, which wasn't fully calibrated at the
time, but is set to snap more pictures now.
"WFC3 was remarkable for the smoothness of its checkout
and calibration," Burch told SPACE.com.
All of Hubble's other systems and instruments have been
checked out and look to be in good working order.
"In just about all areas, the new and repaired science
instruments meet or exceed their performance specifications, and we believe
they will fulfill the expectations of the astronomy community," Burch
said.
Scientists and NASA officials would give no hint of what the
targets are for the first photos, so Hubble fans will have to wait for Wednesday's
mid-day release.
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