Last time for the Hubble. One more repair trip before it retires.
Star Talk: NASA gears up for final repair visit to Hubble
Sunday, September 28, 2008
By Richard Monda
Space shuttle Atlantis is being readied on launch pad 39A at Cape Canaveral for the fifth and final repair mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. When in orbit, four of its seven-member crew will venture into space to make five spacewalks over as many days to fix and upgrade the aging telescope. If they are successful, NASA officials expect the Hubble Space Telescope to be “at the absolute apex of its capabilities.”
Space shuttle Discovery deployed Hubble into orbit on April 25, 1990. Since then, there have been three servicing missions to the telescope for a total of four repair trips (one mission required two shuttle flights to complete).
The first mission came in December 1993, when the shuttle Endeavor flew to Hubble so astronauts could install corrective optics on the “nearsighted” telescope. Also during this first mission, the original wide-field planetary camera was replaced with its second-generation counterpart, the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2. In addition, Hubble’s solar panels were changed and new gyroscopes installed.
Source: http://www.dailygazette.com/news/2008/sep/28/0928_startalk/