NASA Announces a new Servicing Mission to the Hubble Space Telescope

Posted on October 31st, 2006 in NASA,Space by Ross Wynne

 

Hubble Servicing Mission 4 Image

 

Like I said in suspected in my previous post NASA has approved the servicing mission to the HST.

Well done NASA for having the courage to conduct the servicing mission. Perhaps with the new Wide Field Camera 3 being installed we’ll get ever closer to understanding Dark Matter and Dark Energy. Also it seems that they have considered the retirement phase by anouncing that there will be soft capture mechanism installed probably for a robotic mission to deorbit the telescope.

More details are here from the NASA website.

Hubble Mission Decision on 31st Oct (Probably a YES!)

Posted on October 28th, 2006 in NASA,Science,Space by Ross Wynne
Hubble

I’ve just read a press release from NASA saying that Michael Griffin will announce the decision for a possible forth and final mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope on Tuesday at 10am (EST).

I think it’s a yes for the simple reason that NASA has already setup a follow up “News conference with the astronauts who would carry out the mission” later that afternoon!

Hubble has been at the fore front of space exploration for the past 16 years. Several components have failed in recent years and additionally its batteries and gyro’s are unlikely to last for more than another year or two. It’s replacement, the James Webb Space Telescope, is due to be launched in 2013 hence the need to keep this vital science tool up and running until then.