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About two weeks ago, the crew of seven astronauts that is preparing for the Hubble servicing mission (SM4) invited me to come to the Johnson Space Center (JSC) to give them a series of talks on Hubble science. I was, of course, very happy to oblige. I arrived to JSC on October 20, and the entire morning of October 21 was reserved for my presentation. The fact that the crew were able to accommodate such a presentation in their busy schedule was the result of the delay in SM4, which was originally planned to take off on October 14.
So here I was, arriving on a date on which if all would have gone right the crew would have been in space!
Even though I believe that I give reasonably good talks, I thought that the crew must regard my presentation as a rather poor consolation prize. Still, I was extremely happy to see again Scott Altman, Gregory Johnson, Megan McArthur, Michael Good, Andrew Feustel, and my old friends John Grunsfeld and Mike Massimino. These are a real life “magnificent seven.”
As expected, the crew members did not hide at first their disappointment from the fact SM4 had to be postponed, and neither did I. Yet, as my presentation of a series of recent HST results went on, they became more and more engaged. They started bombarding me with questions about how the new instruments (that will be installed on board HST during SM4) would contribute to the scientific questions I was discussing. By the time I finished, none of us was looking back. We were all again sharing the excitement of the grand things that the telescope would do after SM4.
On the way to the airport Massimino told me that my presentation helped renew the enthusiasm of the crew towards the mission. I could not have asked for a bigger compliment.
What has happened to this mission? It was post-poned, but rescheduled? Are they not going to fix the Hubble now? It is perhaps the single most important telescope we have ever created, and keeping it functioning should be a priority.
Any insight here?
Carolyn
Luvs Deep Field
What happened to this mission? Will Hubble be fixed?
The Hubble Serving Mission is still happening! There was a delay and the new target launch date is May 12, 2009. Read all about the mission at https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/servicing/SM4/main/
When you have a mission virtually on the pad ready to go to Hubble and something goes ‘phut’ on the telescope right then, you have to take a step back and re-plan… We no longer exist in a cold-war space-race mentality, so NASA are exactly right to work the problem back down to the bare metal as it were. Charging around like the proverbial ‘bull in a china shop’ is not the way to do these things. HST will get fixed. As an aside, I’m delighted to see that Megan McArthur is on STS125… I didn’t realise she hadn’t flown before. Enjoy it Megan!