Since it was launched into orbit 16 years ago, the telescope has helped astrophysicists peer deep into the universe free of the distortions from the Earth's atmosphere.

Orbiting 575 kilometers (360 miles) above the Earth, the Hubble has enabled scientists to better measure the age and origins of the universe, observe distant supernovas, and identify and study bodies in and outside the solar system.

In 2004, it conveyed pictures of the most distant parts of the universe ever observed by visible light, "the deepest portrait of the visible universe ever achieved by humankind," said the Space Telescope Science Institute.

NASA had scheduled a mission for Hubble in 2003, but scrapped it after the Columbia shuttle disintegrated while returning to Earth. The accident raised serious safety questions for the NASA space program, particularly with the shuttle's heat shield. Tuesday's announcement comes after two of the last three shuttle missions were judged a success.

Griffin said the decision to go ahead was taken after a painstaking review of safety issues.

"We're not going to risk a crew in order to do a Hubble mission," he told staff at Goddard Space Center in Maryland outside of Washington.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has said previously it was ready to refurbish the telescope as long as the mission did not put the space shuttle crew in jeopardy.

The Hubble mission presents a challenge because the shuttle crew would not be able to seek refuge aboard the orbiting International Space Station if a serious problem arose.

NASA also is faced with a busy schedule of another 15 missions to finish building the space station before retiring the entire shuttle program in 2010, or four missions per year.

A Hubble mission would likely be set for early 2008 and would require a second shuttle to remain at the ready for any rescue mission should the crew face an emergency.

A new mission to the Hubble would replace the telescope's six stabilizing gyroscopes and its batteries to extend its life.

Astronauts would also repair an infrared spectrometer that has been broken since 2004 and install two new instruments, including the Wide Field Camera 3 that would enhance images of dark matter and of the first galaxies that were formed after the Big Bang, the scientific model of the creation of the universe.

earlier related report
NASA Announces a New Servicing Mission to the Hubble Space Telescope
Greenbelt - Shuttle astronauts will make one final house call to NASA's Hubble Space Telescope as part of a mission to extend and improve the observatory's capabilities through 2013.

NASA Administrator Michael Griffin announced plans for a fifth servicing mission to Hubble Tuesday during a meeting with agency employees at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. Goddard is the agency center responsible for managing Hubble.

"We have conducted a detailed analysis of the performance and procedures necessary to carry out a successful Hubble repair mission over the course of the last three shuttle missions. What we have learned has convinced us that we are able to conduct a safe and effective servicing mission to Hubble," Griffin said. "While there is an inherent risk in all spaceflight activities, the desire to preserve a truly international asset like the Hubble Space Telescope makes doing this mission the right course of action."

The flight is tentatively targeted for launch during the spring to fall of 2008. Mission planners are working to determine the best location and vehicle in the manifest to support the needs of Hubble while minimizing impact to International Space Station assembly. The planners are investigating the best way to support a launch on need mission for the Hubble flight. The present option will keep Launch Pad 39-B at the Kennedy Space Center, Fla., available for such a rescue flight should it be necessary.

Griffin also announced the astronauts selected for the mission. Veteran astronaut Scott D. Altman will command the final space shuttle mission to Hubble. Navy Reserve Capt. Gregory C. Johnson will serve as pilot. Mission specialists include veteran spacewalkers John M. Grunsfeld and Michael J. Massimino and first-time space fliers Andrew J. Feustel, Michael T. Good and K. Megan McArthur.

Altman, a native of Pekin, Ill., will be making his fourth spaceflight and his second trip to Hubble. He commanded the STS-109 Hubble servicing mission in 2002. He served as pilot of STS-90 in 1998 and STS-106 in 2000. Johnson, a Seattle native and former Navy test pilot and NASA research pilot, was selected as an astronaut in 1998. He will be making his first spaceflight.

Chicago native Grunsfeld, an astronomer, will be making his third trip to Hubble and his fifth spaceflight. He performed five spacewalks to service the telescope on STS-103 in 1999 and STS-109 in 2002. He also flew on STS-67 in 1995 and STS-81 in 1997. Massimino, from Franklin Square, N.Y., will be making his second trip to Hubble and his second spaceflight. He performed two spacewalks to service the telescope during the STS-109 mission in 2002.

Feustel, Good, and McArthur were each selected as astronauts in 2000. Feustel, a native of Lake Orion, Mich., was an exploration geophysicist in the petroleum industry at the time of his selection by NASA. Good is from Broadview Heights, Ohio, and is an Air Force colonel and weapons' systems officer. He graduated from the Air Force Test Pilot School, having logged more than 2,100 hours in 30 different types of aircraft. McArthur, born in Honolulu, considers California her home state. An oceanographer and former chief scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, she has a doctorate from the University of California-San Diego.

The two new instruments are the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) and Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). The COS is the most sensitive ultraviolet spectrograph ever flown on Hubble. The instrument will probe the cosmic web, the large-scale structure of the universe whose form is determined by the gravity of dark matter and is traced by the spatial distribution of galaxies and intergalactic gas.

WFC3 is a new camera sensitive across a wide range of wavelengths (colors), including infrared, visible, and ultraviolet light. It will have a broad inquiry from the planets in our solar system to the early and distant galaxies beyond Hubble's current reach, to nearby galaxies with stories to tell about their star formation histories.

Other planned work includes installing a refurbished Fine Guidance Sensor that replaces one degrading unit of the three already onboard. The sensors control the telescope's pointing system. An attempt will also be made to repair the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph. Installed in 1997, it stopped working in 2004. The instrument is used for high resolution studies in visible and ultraviolet light of both nearby star systems and distant galaxies, providing information about the motions and chemical makeup of stars, planetary atmospheres, and other galaxies.

"Hubble has been rewriting astronomy text books for more than 15 years, and all of us are looking forward to the new chapters that will be added with future discoveries and insights about our universe," said Mary Cleave, NASA's associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate.

The Hubble servicing mission is an 11-day flight. Following launch, the shuttle will rendezvous with the telescope on the third day of the flight. Using the shuttle's mechanical arm, the telescope will be placed on a work platform in the cargo bay. Five separate space walks will be needed to accomplish all of the mission objectives.

"The Hubble mission will be an exciting mission for the shuttle team. The teams have used the experiences gained from Return to Flight and station assembly to craft a very workable Hubble servicing flight. The inspection and repair techniques, along with spacewalk planning from station assembly, were invaluable in showing this mission is feasible," said Associate Administrator for Space Operations Bill Gerstenmaier. "There are plenty of challenges ahead as the teams do the detailed planning and figure the best way to provide for a launch on need capability for the mission. There is no question that this highly motivated and dedicated flight control team will meet the challenge."

earlier related report
New Hubble Servicing Mission to upgrade instruments
Paris - After more than a decade of fascinating discoveries, the Hubble Space Telescope will soon be given the new beginning it deserves. Today, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin has given the green light for a Shuttle mission to repair and upgrade the permanent space-based observatory.

The history of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope is dominated by the familiar sharp images and amazing discoveries that have had an unprecedented scientific impact on our view of the world and our understanding of the universe. Nevertheless, such important contributions to science and humankind have only been possible as a result of regular upgrades and enhancements to Hubble's instrumentation.

Using the Space Shuttle for this fifth Servicing Mission underlines the important role that astronauts have played and continue to play in increasing the Space Telescope's lifespan and scientific power. Since the loss of Columbia in 2003, the Shuttle has been successfully launched on three missions, confirming that improvements made to it have established the required high level of safety for the spacecraft and its crew.

"There is never going to be an end to the science that we can do with a machine like Hubble", says David Southwood, ESA's Director of Science. "Hubble is our way of exploring our origins. Everyone should be proud that there is a European element to it and that we all are part of its success at some level."

This Servicing Mission will not just ensure that Hubble can function for perhaps as much as another ten years; it will also increase its capabilities significantly in key areas. This highly visible mission is expected to take place in 2008 and will feature several space walks.

As part of the upgrade, two new scientific instruments will be installed: the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph and Wide Field Camera 3. Each has advanced technology sensors that will dramatically improve Hubble's potential for discovery and enable it to observe faint light from the youngest stars and galaxies in the universe. With such an astounding increase in its science capabilities, this orbital observatory will continue to penetrate the most distant regions of outer space and reveal breathtaking phenomena.

"Today, Hubble is producing more science than ever before in its history. Astronomers are requesting five times more observing time than that available to them" says Bob Fosbury, Head of the HST European Coordinating Facility. "The new instruments will open completely new windows on the universe. Extraordinary observations are planned over the coming years, including some of the most fascinating physical phenomena ever seen: investigation of planets around other stars, digging deeper into the ancestry of our Milky Way and above all gaining a much deeper insight into the evolution of the universe."

Around the same time that the Shuttle lifts off for the Servicing Mission, ESA will launch Herschel, the orbiting telescope with the largest mirror ever deployed in space. Herschel will complement Hubble in the infrared part of the spectrum and is an ESA mission with NASA participation.

Instead of being left at the mercy of its aging instruments, the Hubble Space Telescope will now be given the new lease of life it deserves. In the hope that more discoveries from Hubble will help explain more of the mysteries of the universe, astronauts will make this fifth trip to the world's most powerful visual light observatory and increase its lifespan and scientific power.

Hubble's direct successor, the James Webb Space Telescope - a collaborative project being undertaken by NASA, ESA and the Canadian Space Agency - is scheduled for launch in 2013. The Servicing Mission just decided on will reduce the gap between the end of the HST mission and the start of the JWST mission.

earlier related report
CU-Boulder Instrument Set For Insertion On Hubble Space Telescope In Early 2008

A servicing mission for the Hubble Space Telescope announced today by NASA will include the insertion of a $70 million instrument designed by the University of Colorado at Boulder that was built with Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp. of Boulder to probe the nearby galaxies and the distant universe.

Known as the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph, the instrument will gather ultraviolet light from distant stars, galaxies and quasars and detail the physical condition of the early universe, said James Green of CU- Boulder's Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy, principal investigator for the spectrograph. Although COS was selected in 1997 by NASA to upgrade the orbiting telescope, its installation on Hubble -- which requires in-flight work on a space shuttle by an astronaut team -- was put on hold after the 2003 Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.

"This is a great day for the University of Colorado and a great day for Ball Aerospace, and we are elated," said Green. NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said that the Hubble servicing mission by a team of space shuttle astronauts, most likely flying on Discovery, is tentatively targeted for May of 2008.

The telephone booth-sized COS is expected to improve Hubble's ability to detect UV light in the universe by a factor of 30 over the previous Hubble instrument, said Professor Michael Shull of CASA, a COS science team member. "There are literally hundreds of the new targets in the sights of our science team that are just too faint to image with Hubble's other instruments," he said.

The spectrograph will allow astronomers to peer back in time and space from the nearby Milky Way out to roughly 10 billion years ago, when the first galaxies and chemical elements were forming, said Shull, also a professor in the astrophysical and planetary sciences department. The instrument also will be used to study cold interstellar gas clouds, which contain a number of rare elements thought to have been produced by distant, cataclysmic events like supernova explosions, he said.

Shull said the NASA decision today should push the total worth of the project to the campus to between $70 million and $80 million. The 10-member COS science team, which includes five CU-Boulder faculty, is expected to receive about $20 million in the next several years to analyze data from some 552 orbits of observing time reserved for the team, he said.

"That is a lot of money and it will quite frankly buy a lot of science," said Shull, who noted that CASA is expected to hire about 10 postdoctoral researchers, 10 graduate students and 10 undergraduate students to work on the project over the next few years. "We are already getting inquiries from students around the world, and I know several CU-Boulder undergraduates who would like to use data from the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph for their honors theses."

In addition to Shull and Green, the CASA project also includes faculty members Ted Snow, John Stocke and Jeffrey Linsky. The collaborative effort also includes Dennis Ebbets of Ball Aerospace, Alan Stern from the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, researchers from the University of Wisconsin Madison and the Space Telescope Science Institute, Shull said.

CASA's recent $1.6 million addition to its CU Research Park facility located on the East Campus will host much of the COS data analysis work, said Shull.

The servicing mission, the final for Hubble, is expected to keep the world's premier space telescope in operation well into the next decade, according to NASA officials. The mission also will include the installation of a wide field camera built by Ball Aerospace and upgrades in batteries and stabilizing equipment, according to NASA.

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