Posted on 01/23/2008 8:08:51 AM PST by NormsRevenge
When astronauts overhaul the Hubble Space Telescope this summer, they will leave behind a vastly more powerful orbital observatory to scan the universe.
Set to launch aboard NASA's shuttle Atlantis on Aug. 7, the Hubble servicing mission will be the fifth - and final - sortie to upgrade the aging space telescope.
"We're not only going up to Hubble to refurbish it, but also to expand its grasp tremendously," said Alan Stern, associate administrator for NASA's science mission directorate, in a recent briefing. "We expect to make the very best discoveries of the entire two-decade plus Hubble program with the new instruments to be installed."
A deeper look
In addition to performing vital repairs, astronauts will add two new instruments to Hubble's observation platform ? Wide Field Camera-3 and the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph ? that will drastically boost its vision range.
"This refurbished Hubble [will be] a new telescope," said astronomer Sandra Faber of the University of California, Santa Cruz. "We estimate that at the end of this repair Hubble will be 90 times more powerful than when it was first launched."
That means that Hubble will be able to see at least 90 times more objects in deep space than it could when it was deployed in April 1990, she added.
With its ability to scan the universe at wavelengths ranging from the near-infrared, visible spectrum to the near-ultraviolet, the new Wide Field Camera-3 should allow Hubble to see objects that formed fewer than 800 million years after the beginning of the universe.
"To follow galaxy formation to times that are even earlier than this, we need a camera that can take sharp pictures efficiently at longer wavelengths," Faber said. "And that's exactly what Wide Field Camera-3 is going to do."
The new camera has better resolution than its Wide Field Planetary Camera-2 predecessor and a wider field of view than Hubble's current NICMOS spectrometer, and could reveal objects that formed when the universe was just 400 or 500 million years old, she added.
"A difference like this makes a huge difference in the structure and formation of the galaxies that we'll see," Faber said. Astronomers currently estimate that the universe is about 13.7 billion years old.
Hubble's new Cosmic Origins Spectrograph, meanwhile, will scan the universe in the ultraviolet range with about 10 times more sensitivity than the observatory's current tools.
"I believe it's the most sensitive UV spectroscopic capability ever to fly in space for astronomical purposes," said Hubble senior project scientist David Leckrone of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. "It's designed, because it's so sensitive, to go as deep as possible out across the universe as fast as possible."
Researchers hope the new spectrograph will map the so-called cosmic web, the universe's large-scale structure made up of strands of galaxies that branch out in three dimensions like an astronomical spider's web.
"It is amazing to me how we've been able to reinvent the Hubble Space Telescope with each of these missions," said astronaut John Grunsfeld, who will serve as the lead spacewalker for the telescope's last overhaul.
Full power ahead
Hubble service astronauts will also replace failed gyroscopes, fine guidance sensor and aged batteries, and make unprecedented repairs to the space telescope's main camera and a vital spectrograph.
"When the astronauts leave Hubble for the last time, it will be at the apex of its capabilities," said Leckrone. "It will be the first time since 1993 that there will be five working instruments aboard."
Spacewalkers will replace Hubble's cracked thermal insulation and replace each of its 16-year-old batteries among other hardware.
They will also repair the observatory's Space Telescope Imaging Spectroscope and the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), both of which were never designed to be fixed in orbit. Spacewalkers will remove more than 111 tiny screws to repair the two units.
"The good news is we're going to try and repair ACS. The bad news is we've never done it before," said Grunsfeld. "It's very tricky."
Grunsfeld and his six crewmates plan to stage five spacewalks to service Hubble during their STS-125 mission. NASA initially canceled the spaceflight following the 2003 Columbia tragedy, but later reinstated the mission after a detailed risk analysis.
The result, researchers said, is about five extra years of science for Hubble before its controlled deorbit sometime after 2020. To prepare for the space telescope's eventual demise, spacewalkers will also attach a connecting port that will allow a robotic tug to dock with Hubble.
"None of us could have imagined what this fourth-generation suite of instruments can do," said Stern, adding the 90-fold jump in observation power for Hubble will be unprecedented. "We will have the capability, literally, of approximately 100 Hubbles [circa] 1990 when this mission is done."
Hubble Space Telescope is seen with ground view in this picture taken from Space Shuttle in March 2002. A long-delayed and nearly canceled upgrade to the Hubble Space Telescope will have to wait until NASA completes delivery of three modules to the International Space Station, officials said on January, 8, 2008. REUTERS/NASA/Handout
Rix the Hubble with a shuttle mission?
Yeah and that’s going to happen.
Can’t even get the damn things to work even a part of the time.
Great job there N.A.S.A ya dorks.
I am sure my letter had nothing to do with it. The calls to congress did, I am sure.
The mission that almost didn’t happen. Who turned this around from a no-go to a go? Kudos to him/her.
HAL9000 would have found that unacceptable.
I thought there was a replacement for Hubble in the works. Why is NASA wasting a Shuttle mission on Hubble’s 1970’s technology? The Shuttle’s have very few flights left in them before they will have to be retired. NASA’s top managers are idiots.
When it was first launched the d@mn thing didn't even work, so making it "90 times more powerful" shouldn't be too hard.
Because Congress told them to do it.
So now we’ll risk an orbiter and crew, in the middle of an aggressive and behind schedule ISS assembly sequence, on a science mission which is largely duplicative of ground based and/or upcoming space based instruments. Not to mention that we could be spending the $800MM slated for this mission on closing the flight gap between shuttle and Orion or on a very nice unmanned mission (if that’s your brand of choice).
Not so fast. There is a real problem, but the problem with the problem is that it really shouldn't be a problem. (Heh.)
Think of this: back in the sixties NASA was da BOMB. Every year saw some new achievement. Every year they were doing something better and more ambitious than the year before, right up until the moon landings.
So what do you do after that? Answer: build a "truck" for space travel. Make it commonplace. Well, that was long enough ago that the hardware is getting older than the pilots. Not to mention that the shuttle launches had to be severely scaled back after the Challenger debacle, and Columbia didn't improve the situation at all.
They're in a bind the nature of which they probably cannot admit. Short of landing people on Mars or establishing a permanent Moon base, there is nowhere for them to move forward with manned spaceflight. And considering the developments in robot spacecraft, there is less justification for risking live crews now than ever before. They ought to quit it, but they can't.
Once you've done it, if you can't top it, you gotta at least keep doing it. Otherwise, what should be obviously a reasonable step back for a government agency will show up in the media as a giant leap backward for mankind. Or, at least for NASA.
Ain't happenin'.
The Shuttle’s are not safe now. What will they be like after they are past their limit of 100 flights per Shuttle?
If we don’t upgrade the Hubble now we’re supposed to have an even better next generation space telescope available in what, 0.0000001% of the lifetime of the Universe. I don’t think it will change much in that time. The only harm will be to the careers of a few astronomers who will have less data to analyze. If we don’t get the space station finished, or at least the parts that require the Shuttle to be finished done, before the Shuttle’s croak, then we’ll risk losing the space station. That’s a more important and more expensive loss.
Here's a question for ya: What is the space station for?
I will venture to suggest the answer is: "to be there."
Nothing else.
Do not take this to mean that I'm against space exploration. If I were, then I wouldn't mind letting gubmint suck all the oxygen out of it like they do.
To provide an example and keep our minds focused on having people out there, and eventually beyond there. There will probably be some useful research done, but my biggest reason is psychological to keep the fickle public from killing manned space programs altogether. Sure the robotic exploration is fun and the Hubble stuff is interesting, but they alone aren't going to pry us off this rock. The technology spin offs probably would come in time without space as industry knows there's money to be made in such research. The Hubble data probably won't get us to fusion power any quicker than earth based research alone. Our species won't be safe forever bound to one rock. And psychologically mankind does best when there is a dangerous frontier to draw the best out of us. We're running out of frontiers down here.
The “replacement” Hubble is an IR-only telescope. Hubble has visible and UV (down to 100 nm) capabilities. Ground-based observing can’t see shorter than 350 nm or so. There are no plans to launch a large visible or UV telescope in the next ten years. Without this upcoming servicing mission, there is a wavelength gap in astronomy.
Enough people asked for it, same as for imaging the Face on Mars. Now, if enough people ask for something actually important, maybe NASA will be tasked with that as well.
The new NASA homepage is sort of interesting.
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