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Preparations for the last servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope
are well underway at several NASA facilities. Almost all 22 thousand pounds of
Service Mission 4 hardware is at some stage of integration and test at the
Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. This includes, new gyros, batteries, fine
guidance sensor, astronaut tools, support hardware, a new docking ring, the carrier
systems and 2 new Hubble science instruments. The Wide Field Camera 3
begins its 3rd and final thermal vacuum test shortly, where it will
experience the harshness of space inside a large simulator for several weeks.
The Service Mission 4 astronauts come to Goddard to practice installing the
camera into the Hubble Space Telescope high-fidelity mechanical simulator as
well as the carrier systems that will transport the camera to orbit onboard
the space shuttle. The Wide Field Camera 3 will be Hubble's most advanced camera,
increasing it's discovery efficiency by a factor of 5. The Cosmic Origins
Spectrograph, a point-source ultra-violet spectrograph, is ready for
flight. Astronauts practice installing COS into the high-fidelity mechanical
simulator and the carrier systems.
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At Goddard, engineers and astronauts work together developing tools and techniques
to resurrect 2 malfunctioning science instruments currently on orbit inside
Hubble. Both the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph and the Advanced Camera for
Surveys suffered power supply failures. This is the first time a repair like
this has ever been done on orbit. One of NASA's premier training facilities at
the Johnson Space Center in Houston, is the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory. In this
6.2 million gallon swimming pool, Goddard engineers work along side the astronauts
as they train for the mission.
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Scientists and engineers are excited about flying
this last servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope and, we'll update
you periodically as preparations continue.
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