The director of the American space agency NASA, Mike Griffin, said (on Tuesday) that astronauts who will take off in the space shuttle will be sent to service the Hubble Space Telescope. The orbital observatory changed the face of astronomy and excited the public thanks to the spectacular images of the universe, but its systems began to fall.
Griffin told NASA employees that the improvements made to the shuttle's launch system allow a safe launch of a crew to work on the Hubble. The mission will use the Space Shuttle Discovery and will be launched in 2008.
"We are supposed to add a shuttle mission to the Hubble service to the shuttle schedule that will take off even before the shuttles retire from service," Dr. Griffin told the audience at the Goddard Space Center in Maryland, from which the Hubble program is managed.
Without the service flight, the telescope is not expected to operate for more than two or three years. The batteries and gyroscopes used to stabilize the telescope so that it points at one point are weakening and will now need to be replaced. The shuttle crew will also install two new instruments: "Wide-field camera #3 to replace #2 and the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS). The new instruments will significantly improve the Hubble Space Telescope's ability to see distant objects and holes in the early universe.
The service flight should extend Hubble's life at least until 2013, the time when NASA will approach the launch of Hubble's successor - the James Webb Space Telescope. Dr. Griffin's decision reverses the decision of his predecessor Sean O'Keefe who canceled the programmed mission following the Columbia disaster in 2003. O'Keeffe established a policy of preparing a safe haven for the astronaut crew so that if, God forbid, their shuttle was damaged during launch, they could remain on the International Space Station until rescuers arrived. A flight to Hubble was a violation of the states because the shuttle does not carry enough fuel to get from Hubble orbit to the orbit of the space station.
Griffin's decision will trigger the preparation of an alternative rescue strategy if Discovery suffers mishaps on its way to orbit. Among other things, NASA will have to prepare another shuttle on standby and train the astronauts in moving from shuttle to shuttle.
However, against the small risk that a malfunction might occur, we decided to add a rescue flight that would include a shuttle that would wait on the second launch pad, close to the one from which the Hubble mission was launched.
This news delighted astronomers all over the world. The billion-dollar project made a significant contribution to our knowledge about the origin of the universe and its development. Hubble provided us with the most in-depth look at the universe and discovered interesting objects that ground-based telescopes then studied in detail.
His research on the expansion of the universe at the beginning of his mission changed the estimates we have about the age of the universe. His images also provided unequivocal proof of the existence of black holes and confirmed theories about the creation of planets. The scientists now expect that as its capabilities improve, the telescope will be able to make more breakthrough discoveries.
"Today the telescope provides greater scientific output than ever before. Astronomers require 5 times more viewing time than can be provided," said Bob Fosbury, director of the Hubble Group at the European Space Agency. "The new instruments will open completely new windows into the universe and spectacular observations are already planned in the coming years, including some of the most spectacular phenomena ever seen: exploring planets around other stars, digging deeper into the mysteries of the Milky Way and above all, gaining a deeper insight into the history of the universe."
"It's a great day for science and discoveries, a great day for human inspiration." said Maryland Sen. Barbara Mikulski, who spearheaded the campaign to upgrade the funeral. "This is because grief means a lot to so many people," she said.
