What is one of the most famous man-made satellites ever? The Hubble Space Telescope! It’s me, Spaceman Spiff, and after shaking off those aliens, I’m back for my second blog!
Hubble was launched in 1990 on board the Space Shuttle Discovery and has been in service for fifteen years. Hubble’s four main instruments allow it to observe in the near ultraviolet, visible, and near infrared spectrum, and its position in orbit means that there is no interference from the atmosphere. It has given us stunningly detailed images of everything from stars to galaxies, and giant nebulas, and has greatly expanded our knowledge of the cosmos. But it also has an interesting history, too.
The Hubble project got started in the 1970’s, with a launch date in 1983. However, it was plagued by technical delays, budget problems, and when the Challenger disaster claimed the lives of its seven man crew, NASA officials were hesitant to launch any more shuttles (the shuttle was the only space craft that could bring Hubble into orbit), with the eventual cost of the whole thing equaling $2.5 billion. When it was finally launched in 1990, it was discovered that its main mirror had been ground to the wrong shape. A servicing mission by the Space Shuttle Endeavour fixed that.
Three more servicing missions by Discovery and Columbia repaired various parts of the telescope, but once again it broke down.
A servicing mission was planned for February of 2005, but when Columbia, the same ship that had flown servicing mission 3B, disintegrated on reentry because of a hole in its wing in 2003 (to find out more, there is a Nova called “Space Shuttle Disaster”), NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe decided that all future shuttle missions should be able to reach the International Space Station. Since Hubble was in a completely different orbit, the servicing mission was cancelled.
However, in April 2005, Michel D. Griffin was nominated as the new NASA administrator, and soon after authorized preparations for the fifth and final servicing mission of the Hubble Space Telescope, saying he would make a final decision after the next two shuttle missions. In October 2006, Griffin gave a decision of yes, and plans for an eleven-day mission by Space Shuttle Atlantis, was planned for October 2008. However, the failure of the main data-handling unit meant that a new one had to be incorporated, too, since failure of the backup unit would render HST helpless.
Finally, in May of 2009, Space Shuttle Atlantis lifted off for the last servicing mission of the Hubble Space Telescope! During the course of the mission, the crew installed the new data-handling unit, repaired the ACS and STIS systems, installed new batteries, two observation instruments, the Wide Field Camera 3, the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph, and the Soft Capture and Rendezvous System. Besides being unable to repair the High Resolution Channel of the ACS, the work done by the astronauts was a complete success, and Hubble remains operational to this day (there is a nova called, “Hubble Amazing Rescue).
Hubble is an amazing spacecraft, and although it is nearing the end of its life, and will be replaced by the Jams Web Space Telescope (JWST) in 2018, it has truly become a window into our understanding of space and time!
