May 11, 2009 9:18 am US/Eastern
Atlantis Makes Final Trip To Hubble Telescope
BALTIMORE (WJZ) ―
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The space shuttle Atlantis is scheduled to launch Monday. Its 12-day mission will be the final trip to the Hubble Space Telescope.
The space shuttle Atlantis was fueled Monday. Its 12-day mission will be the final trip to the Hubble Space Telescope.
Tim Williams has more on what astronauts are scheduled to do as they say goodbye to an old friend.
Space may be the final frontier. When astronauts aboard Atlantis complete their upcoming mission, it will be the final time humans lay hands on the Hubble Space Telescope.
"This is the last servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope and this will be the mission where we put in the final instruments that'll take the last images with Hubble," said NASA telescope manager Lee Feinberg.
During this trip, pairs of astronauts will make five rigorous space walks. Repairs will be made and components replaced to keep Hubble operational for the next five years.
"[After that,] it'll get boosted into space and it will sort of drift out into deep space and the reason we do that is it would be very difficult to bring it back down to Earth. We can't do it in a way that would be controlled," Feinberg said.
Because of the expiration date of the space shuttle program, this will be the last manned mission to Hubble before the Hubble program itself expires. But there will be another space telescope to take its place, named largely in part for the man responsible for getting NASA to the moon.
James Webb was instrumental in Apollo missions and the first administrator of NASA. The new telescope is designed to last 10 years and, at the size of a tennis court, dwarfs the Hubble. Its new technology detects infrared light from old stars, all while orbiting at a distance three times farther than the moon. Astronauts were never an option and neither was saying goodbye to Hubble.
"I think people are glad to know there's something beyond Hubble--the next big telescope," Feinberg said.
Hubble's replacement, the new James Webb Telescope, will launch in 2013.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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