Akers and fellow spacewalker Kathy Thornton had the high-profile assignment in 1993 to install a device to correct the Hubbles optical problems discovered after it was launched in 1990.
The planned 3.5-hour task took about 35 minutes, but Akers said the duo was ready for most anything.
"We trained for things to go wrong," Akers said. "Its all teamwork. Theres actually hundreds of people working with you on the ground. If something goes wrong, theyll figure it out if they can."
Akers, a veteran of four shuttle flights and more than 29 hours of spacewalking, is a retired Air Force Colonel and now teaches mathematics at the University of Missouri in Rolla.
He said training exercises helped, but there was nothing like working on the Hubble itself.
"The big thing I learned was the simulator is never like the real thing," he said. "We didnt have the Hubble to practice on, so if someone on the ground put a bolt in that we didnt know about, we could have been in trouble."
Akers said he had to be careful when moving tools and parts in microgravity, unlike in the training pools on the ground where a certain amount of force was needed to move items against the water.
"The big thing I learned was the simulator is never like the real thing."
Akers one bit of advice for all spacewalkers is to take it easy. "Never be in a hurry," he said. "It can be tedious, just go slow."
Discoverys current mission to Hubble includes two veterans from previous repair missions Steven Smith and Claude Nicollier.
Smith flew in 1997 as a spacewalker. Nicollier operated the shuttles robotic arm during the 1993 repair mission in which Akers participated in.
Smith will act as lead spacewalker. He said previous experience with the telescope is helpful in knowing what to expect.
"Even though we have mock-ups of it, it just doesnt look the same in the water," he said. "In fact, in the water it looks smaller than it does in real life."
Smith has tried to pass on his experiences to his fellow spacewalkers, but not too much.
"Ive tried to bite my tongue in certain cases and not give them too much information that would overwhelm them," he said. But certainly there are some lessons learned that my crew mates and I learned on STS 82 that will help their lives now."
Smith will even revisit some tasks from the previous Hubble repair mission. Hell be replacing one of the telescopes tape recorders with a solid-state version and, if time allows, continue repairs to the insulation blanket started by spacewalker Mark Lee in 1997.
Nicollier said he thinks his experience with the robot arm may help the group work better as a team.
"In a way now, Im going to be at the other end of the arm and maybe the contribution that I was able to bring to this mission is in that area the cooperation between the EVA (spacewalker) and the RMS (robot arm) operator to perform the job," he said.
Hes also passed on some tips and hints to Jean-François Clervoy, who will operate the arm on this mission.
The two have discussed terminology and how to position the spacewalkers when performing delicate tasks inside the telescope.
Nicollier said he didnt have to pass on too much information though.
"Jean-François has a lot of talent," he said. "Im very impressed with the quality of his work and I know he will be doing a perfect job on the mission."
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