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Astronauts Visit Goddard To Get Hands-On Training For Next Servicing Mission
Greenbelt MD (SPX) Feb 21, 2007 Seven NASA astronauts, dressed in their famous blue flight suits, arrived at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., Feb. 12 for three days of crew familiarization meetings. They are here to begin their official orientation and training for what will be the last shuttle servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope in late 2008. The crew spent their mornings in training sessions, and afternoons inside the world's largest Class 10,000 cleanroom at Goddard. During their three-day visit, the astronauts received extensive briefings about Hubble operations, Goddard facilities and hardware, and the mission's five scheduled spacewalks. During the mission, astronauts will install two new science instruments, as well as perform essential upgrades to the observatory. "While Johnson Space Center provides underwater training for the astronauts in its Neutral Buoyancy Lab, Goddard offers them hands-on experience using high fidelity mock-ups of Hubble and the specialty tools required for the tasks that lie ahead," said Preston Burch, associate director and program manager for Hubble at Goddard. "Together, we help ensure a flawless servicing mission." The crew chosen for this servicing mission includes commander and veteran astronaut Scott Altman, shuttle pilot Navy Reserve Capt. Gregory C. Johnson, veteran spacewalkers John Grunsfeld and Mike Massimino, and first-time space fliers Andrew Feustel, Air Force Col. Michael Good, and flight engineer and robotic arm operator K. Megan McArthur.
New Instruments Mean New Promise of Unknown Science Discoveries The COS will be the most sensitive ultraviolet spectrograph ever flown on Hubble, providing new capabilities that will take the telescope into exciting, uncharted space. Its primary science objective will be to measure the structure and composition of the ordinary matter that is concentrated in what scientists call the 'cosmic web' - long, narrow filaments of galaxies and intergalactic gas, separated by huge voids. Astronauts will install the COS in the instrument bay currently outfitted by 'COSTAR' - the set of corrective mirrors on deployable arms which provided corrected light beams to the first generation of Hubble axial instruments. The WFC3 is a new camera sensitive across a wide range of wavelengths, including near infrared, visible, and ultraviolet light. The primary goal of this instrument is to study a diverse range of objects and phenomena, from young and extremely distant galaxies, to much more nearby stellar systems, to objects in our very own solar system. Astronauts will install the WFC3 in the instrument bay currently holding the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2).
Hubble to Get Some Necessary Upgrades Astronauts also will attempt a complex, on-orbit repair of the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph, or STIS, which was installed in 1997, and stopped working in 2004. Astronomers used the STIS for high resolution studies in visible and ultraviolet light of both nearby star systems and distant galaxies, which provide clues about the motions and chemical makeup of stars, planetary atmospheres, and other galaxies. Finally, astronauts will install a Soft Capture Mechanism to Hubble's aft bulkhead. This circular device has structures and targets that will allow a de-orbit vehicle to more easily capture and guide the telescope to a safe, controlled re-entry at the end of its mission life. Email This Article
Related Links
Russia Eyes New Space Observatory
Moscow (RIA Novosti) Feb 07, 2007In 2011, Russia plans to orbit a new astrophysical observatory as part of its Federal Space Program (2006-2015). The project, called Spektr-Rentgen-Gamma (SRG), integrates a Russian X-ray observatory (ART) and two European programs. ART is a combination of X-ray telescopes with coded aperture and a gamma burst detector. It was conceived in the late 1980s but never implemented because of lack of funding. |
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