CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., May 15, 2009
Hubble Repair Poses Daunting Challenge
Atlantis Astronauts Installing New Gyroscopes, Batteries During 2nd Spacewalk
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Play CBS Video Video Hubble Repair Mission Setbacks Aside from wonder and amazement while stationed 350 miles above Earth, NASA spacewalkers have also faced dramatic moments in the effort to update the Hubble Space Telescope. Daniel Sieberg reports.
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Video Hubble Repair To Begin A piano-sized camera will be installed by astronauts during a high-orbit spacewalk to give the telescope a longer life. Space debris adds a level of risk to the mission, reports Daniel Sieberg.
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Video Fixing The Hubble Telescope Up in space, the Atlantis crew made a spectacular catch of the Hubble telescope. The crew aims to fix Hubble, which has been taking picture of far off galaxies for 19 years. Daniel Sieberg reports.
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Astronaut Mike Good works on the Hubble Space Telescope during a spacewalk, May 15, 2009. (AP Photo/NASA TV)
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The Hubble Space Telescope viewed from inside the Space Shuttle Atlantis, after the giant observatory was grabbed by the shuttle's Canadian-built remote manipulator system, May 13, 2009. (NASA)
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Astronauts will install these two new battery modules onto Hubble during Service Mission 4 spacewalks, providing extended power life to the telescope. (NASA/Chris Gunn)
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The NASA space shuttle Atlantis is seen in silhouette during solar transit, Tuesday, May 12, 2009, from Florida. (NASA/Thierry Legault)
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Astronaut Michael Massimino and fellow spacewalker Michael "Bueno" Good successfully installed four state-of-the-art gyroscopes in the Hubble Space Telescope today, reports CBS News space consultant Bill Harwood.
Replacing Hubble's gyroscopes was the top priority for this final repair mission to the 19-year-old observatory. The gyroscopes are part of the telescope pointing system, and half of the old ones were broken.
Massimino and Good floated out of the shuttle at 8:49 a.m. ET on a spacewalk expected to last about six and a half hours.
Massimino slowly wedged himself into the telescope, head first, and started pulling out the old gyroscopes and putting in the new ones. His spacewalking partner helped.
"Trained my whole life for this," Massimino said as he squeezed his tall, husky body inside. Earlier, outside the telescope, he joked, "Anybody home?"
Replacing the gyro packages requires an astronaut to float inside the telescope, within inches of delicate equipment that could be damaged by an inadvertent movement.
Massimino, a returning Hubble mechanic who is over 6-feet tall, took care not to bump anything inside Hubble while replacing the gyroscopes. Despite the tight fit, NASA expected the work to be relatively straightforward; two gyroscopes are bundled together, for a total of three compact, 24-pound boxes. Sure enough, the first set went in easily.
But an alignment problem prevented installation of a box containing the final two gyros, and the astronauts were forced to install a refurbished spare in its place, Harwood said.
Engineers at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., verified that all six gyros were properly connected and working properly.
Massimino had a brief fright when his communication system fouled up. For a minute or two, no one could not hear him. "That was scary," said one of the astronauts inside when the problem cleared up.
"A little bit," Massimino replied.
The two will also begin replacing battery modules on the telescope.
CBS News space consultant Bill Harwood reports that the telescope's aging nickel-hydrogen batteries now operate at half their original capacity.
"They were built a couple of years before we launched in '90," said Hubble Program Manager Preston Burch. "We're so far beyond the design lifetime it's anybody's guess as to how long they could continue to go. We know it's not infinite. So our best judgment is we should go ahead and still change them out."
It was the second spacewalk in as many days for the Atlantis astronauts. On Thursday, another two-man team installed a powerful new camera and a computer data unit, after struggling with a stubborn bolt. NASA hoped for an easier, less stressful spacewalk Friday.
In all, five spacewalks are planned so that the observatory - beloved by astronomers and many others for its breathtaking views of the universe - is at its apex while living out its remaining years.
Also this morning, astronaut Megan McArthur is using the shuttle's robotic arm to complete an imaging survey, inspecting some tiles on the craft's underbelly that were missed previously.
NASA sweated a few bullets during yesterday's spacewalk, but was very pleased with the results. Astronauts on Thursday swapped out a nearly 16-year-old camera for a new one the size of a baby grand piano.
Once Astronaut Andrew Feustel and John Grunsfeld left the payload bay hatch and got positioned, they ran into a bit of trouble removing the old Wide Field Camera because a bolt was stuck. They fetched extra tools, but none seemed to work.
They were finally urged by Mission Control to use as much force as possible, even though there was a risk the bolt might break. If that had happened, the old camera would be stuck inside, leaving no room for its improved replacement.
"There were tense moments during that activity," Hubble senior scientist David Leckrone said during a post-spacewalk press conference. "I don't normally reveal my age, and I'm not going to here, but I can tell you I'm five years older now than I was when I came into work this morning."
Harwood reports that early Friday, flight controllers informed the astronauts that the newly installed $132 million Wide Field Camera 3 had passed an overnight functional test.
"That's great news," Massimino said.
Grunsfeld and Feustel also completed other major chores, including replacing a science data-handling unit that broke last autumn, and hooking up a docking ring so a robotic craft can guide Hubble into the Pacific Ocean years from now.
But the mission - a last chance to repair the Hubble Space Telescope - is just getting started.
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- I happen to be decidedly on the progressive left politically (I voted for Ralph Nader four times for US President and I have been a Green Party member for almost nine years). And I am 100-percent-plus pro-space exploration. I simply cannot fathom how anyone of whatever political perspective could not be greatly enthusiastic as well.
The civilian space program--including the justly famed and just re-serviced Hubble Space Telescope--has been dollar-for-dollar the best investment ever made by the US federal government--both for its primary direct value in vastly enhancing our scientific understanding of our home planet Earth, much of the rest of our Solar System, our Milky Way Galaxy, and the infinite universe beyond and for its many secondary values in terms of environmental knowledge (cold desertification on Mars and greenhouse effect gone mad on Venus, for examples), international peaceful cooperation (from space, you do not see those silly artificial national borders from space that all too many people down here obsess about), educational inspiration for current and future scientists, "practical spinoffs" galore (some mentioned by earlier posters), and so on.
As CBS News Corr. Walter Cronkite has often observed, the beginning of the Space Age--most notably Project Apollo, which is marking its 40th anniversary--is what the 20th century will be by far most remembered for in 500 years (and afterward). Barring some massive catastrophe later in 2009, I would posit that this space shuttle mission to HST will be the news event with potentially the most historical impact of anything that has or will happen in 2009.
CBS News is most fortunate to have its excellent space consultant William Harwood and veteran Special Events producer (now on contract) Mark Kramer on its space coverage team. Its new young science-tech correspondent seems sharp, too. I just wish this STS-125/HST mission were receiving much. much, much more coverage, both on regular newscasts and in CBS News Special Reports, as it so richly warrants. (Even CNN has been dishearteningly skimpy with its airtime, alas.)
By the way, I am a science journalist, and avid historian-in-training, who is now finishing a journalism studies doctoral program at the University of Maryland, working on a dissertation that will provide a detailed narrative history of network television-radio space coverage since the 1950s, with particular attention to CBS News.--AR Hogan (ahogan@jmail.umd.edu) - Reply to this comment
- NASA has had more than their share of bone headed managers. As long as they can get rid of them and put good honest people in charge, then they can keep doing the great science that they have done. Managers ignoring the foam ice chunks for more than a decade is a prime example of bone headed management and they should all be fired and never work on anything important again the rest of their lives. Maybe the supermarkets would hire them.
- Reply to this comment
- The overwhelming majority of Americans are behind this 100%, so don't get your panties in a bunch when a few attention-seekers post anti-Hubble barbs. They are just trying to elicit a response, so don't encourage them.
- Reply to this comment
- I hope this post will be read even if it is surrounded by the drug-induced late-night dreams of edblvgtbl14.
To those who ask for the sense of it all, I would respond: The same spirit that makes us go out to space today made Europeans ship out on the oceans in the 17th century. This way, America was discovered by Europeans.
Without this spirit, no invention would be made, progress wouldn't happen and the US of A in its current form wouldn't exist. - Reply to this comment
- "...Scientific illiteracy is going to run this country into the ground..."---Posted by ibzjem
That is correct, and it's already happened. Some of the same people complaining the loudest about money spent on the space program are complaining the loudest about all the companies sending jobs overseas to China. Well, yes a lot of that outsourcing is pure greed and it shouldn't have happened, but you know what? It COULDN'T have happened unless China and India were breeding scientists and engineers like rabbits. You can't outsource the work to India when there's nobody there who can do the work.
I'm not exactly sure what it is anymore that people think they want. Employers only pay the big bucks to the people who can do the work, and when there's not enough people left in the country who can do the work, even the few who can are gonna get shafted. How many people reading this blog know that 2 years ago China successfully launched an unmanned lunar exploration probe? Or that last year they did their first spacewalk? Yes, some of that was Russian space technology. But if the general level of science education in the US keeps dropping, eventually China will be ahead of the US. - Reply to this comment
- Scientific illiteracy is going to run this country into the ground. Like music and art to the public schools, science and tech departments are being dropped by major "news" organizations. The deniers and nay-Sayers are abundant. Posting messages from their computer while microwaving a frozen pizza, and running the dishwasher, while their favorite program is being recorded from their satellite service on their HDTV-DVR, all the while trying to remember if they have already taken their Prozac and Viagra.
It's getting unbelievable. The information is right there in front of them but they can't click the link to connect the dots. - Reply to this comment
- bomin- my wife is alive today because she is on oxygen 24/7 thanks to the concentrators from scientific developments. There are many scientific achivements by the space program that have helped many people in everyday life. How about satelites for weather forecasting and for farm crop mapping. How about communication satellites and the GPS. Nuclear propulsion systems, Do not short change space technology developments. They are every bit as important as feeding the poor.
- Reply to this comment
- For an interesting justification and need for the space program I direct you to this essay: http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=1325
Posted by obicera1 at 11:10 AM : May 15, 2009
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Very interesting reading; a great list of hypotheticals. - Reply to this comment
- No, sorry, can't see it.
Try again.
v. - Reply to this comment
- Can anybody see this post? Please respond.
Posted by iDragon13
You mean this one? Yes, I see it. And I'm communicating with it. - Reply to this comment
- Can anybody see this post? Please respond.
- Reply to this comment
- For an interesting justification and need for the space program I direct you to this essay: http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=1325
Posted by obicera1 at 11:10 AM : May 15, 2009
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That was fascinating! Thanks for sharing. - Reply to this comment
- Amazing, the narrow minded tards that always post on these boards. Accountability is not always a good thing, and you can always count on people to voice a totally stupid opinion here.
Posted by Carvin82604 at 11:50 AM : May 15, 2009
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I'm just amazed that we haven't seen the discussion turn to a great big left-wing vs. right-wing, gun control argument. All the trolls must have left early for the weekend for a change. Whew! - Reply to this comment
- For an interesting justification and need for the space program I direct you to this essay: http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=1325
- Reply to this comment
- These Hubble pages reveal the extremes of human understanding and stupidity. What is apparent from reader comments is the abysmal quality of parenting and education that cripples the mind of so many -- even in the modern world!.
Ever since early man stepped from his cave and looked up with awe at the dense canopy of night stars, he longed to understand more about the world in which he found himself. As he had so little knowlege his life was brief and brutal.
Owing to the Space Program humankind has added immeasurably to our understanding of the universe and our ability to make life more liveable for millions of citizens. Even the military depends on the knowledge garnered about rockets, robotics, propellents, telephony, exotic materials, and aviation to name a few. Countless lives have been saved by the advances in medicine and biology that space research has made possible. Just the Global Positioning System (GPS) has facilitated inestimable advances in geology, cartography, surveillance, navigation, and on and on.
How thin our text books would be and how empty our brains were it not for the curiosity, inventiveness, entrepreneurialism, and brave pioneering spirt of those in the space program. - Reply to this comment
- Amazing all the benefits we've gained from space programs. And you're complaining about 132 mil when we're spending billions to destroy and rebuild other countries?
Posted by displeased at 8:42 AM : May 15, 2009
Right on!!! - Reply to this comment
- So we can see stars way, way out there in space- SO WHAT? What does that gain us? Any cures for cancer out there? Any new drugs or devices that can eliminate pain, suffering, poverty, murder, natural disasters? What? You mean all that money that's been spent on the space program has given us- cell phones? Oh, that was a GOOD investment!
Posted by bornin1952
One of the many spinoffs from the Hubble telescope is the use of its Charge Coupled Device (CCD) chips for digital imaging breast biopsies. The device captures images of breast tissue more clearly and efficiently than other existing technologies. The CCD chips are so advanced that they can detect minute differences between a malignant or benign tumor without the need for a surgical biopsy. This saves the patient weeks of recovery time and the cost for this procedure is hundreds of dollars vs. thousands for a surgical biopsy. That's just one example. I could list many more technologies that were developed as a result of space research, including fabrics, materials, electronics, and medicinal, from items such as bar codes and smoke detectors to implantable heart pumps, but you should take the time to read about it yourself. - Reply to this comment
- $132 million Wide Field Camera "
Amazing the frivolous waste of money of that magnatude while people lose their homes, jobs and more...
Posted by Newster1
Amazing all the benefits we've gained from space programs. And you're complaining about 132 mil when we're spending billions to destroy and rebuild other countries? - Reply to this comment
- To me, this is the stuff dreams are made of. The USofA has stumbled and fumbled and squanders a lot, but occasionally we do something like this. I feel sorry for those who can't see the magnificence in something like this.
We've got a group of folks traveling 100s of miles in space working on a satellite that allows us to look millions of years in the past and millions of years into the future.
The fact that today's cell phones are the size of matchbooks and it contains a laptop is only one of the wonders that have spun off from space exploration. Let your minds soar and see what's possible. - Reply to this comment
- This telescope is a waste of money. I mean its up in space and we havent got any pictures of heaven from it yet.
Posted by mrs_trepidatious at 5:50 AM : May 15, 2009
That type of heaven is existing just in your head. And there it will remain. - Reply to this comment
