Posted on 01/08/2008 1:53:50 PM PST by blam
Upgraded Hubble telescope to be 90 times as powerful
20:07 08 January 2008
NewScientist.com news service
David Shiga, Austin
Astronaut Steve Smith works on Hubble during the second servicing mission in 1997. Hubble was specifically built to be serviced in orbit with replaceable parts and instruments (Image: NASA)
Space shuttle astronauts will attempt an unprecedented in-orbit repair of key Hubble Space Telescope (HST) instruments during the servicing mission scheduled for August 2008. The repairs, along with the addition of two new instruments, will make Hubble 90 times as powerful as it was after its flawed optics were corrected in 1993.
In October 2006, NASA announced plans to carry out a fourth and final servicing mission for Hubble, in which it would install two new scientific instruments and replace the observatory's batteries and gyroscopes. But previously the agency has not said whether it would attempt a difficult repair of two key instruments that have broken down in recent years.
The Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), which died in January 2007, was Hubble's highest resolution camera and its most-used instrument. And the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS), which failed in 2004, measured light spectra in the ultraviolet, allowing it to gauge the distance and composition of distant galaxies.
Now, the space agency says it will try something never attempted in the three previous Hubble servicing missions – a finicky electronics repair job in space, where astronauts have the challenge of doing everything while wearing bulky spacesuit gloves.
Without the repair mission, Hubble would likely die by 2011, when its last functioning gyroscope is expected to fail. But with new gyroscopes and batteries installed on the upcoming servicing mission, HST should last at least until 2013, and possibly into the 2020s.
(Excerpt) Read more at space.newscientist.com ...
90 x as powerful. That will be incredible I think. I hope the pictures are 90 x as cool.
So we should be able to gather some really detailed pictures of Uranus?
Sorry. I don't resist childish urges very well.
They are going to trash it.
They are going to update it.
They are going to trash it.
They are going to update it.
I wish they would make up their minds already.
That’s the same impression I’ve been getting. But it’ll be cool if it gets the upgrade.
I don’t understand how they can say that Hubble will fail in 2011 if we do nothing, but could fail as soon as 2013 after the upgrade. They really think the new gyros will all go kaput that quickly? Especially now that we know how to run HST on two gyros (out of six)?
Nyah, nyah. ;’) Pingworthy?
Should We Repair Hubble?
Popular Mechanics | May 2007 | Thomas D. Jones
Posted on 04/03/2007 10:49:37 PM EDT by KevinDavis
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1811616/posts
[snip] If the mission succeeds, Hubble should be in peak observing condition until its replacement, the James Webb Space Telescope, is launched in 2013... Some argue that repairing Hubble is pointless, since ground-based observatories have overtaken its capabilities. But terrestrial telescopes fall short of HST’s resolution by a factor of 10 or more. [end]
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Yes,.... we should repair it.
You can’t point it accurately on 2 gyros. You can only point it very coarsely. That’s not useful for science. After STS-125, they’ll let it decay and then finally send up a small rocket to deorbit it.
Europe to get Extremely Large Telescope by 2018?
Cordis | Tuesday, December 5, 2006 | ESO
Posted on 12/05/2006 3:47:03 PM EST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1748891/posts
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