tony: today went more like we were expecting. A really great day. Crew pretty happy, doing pretty well. prepping for tomorrow's EVA

tomas: 6:36 EVA, day we thought would be longest was shortest so far, STIS tomorrow, thusfar crew doing incredible job. COSTAR/COS today, and ACS. crew getting ahead in the timeline

Jon Morse: today was triumph over adversity. brilliant planning and execution, by ground engineers, crew, and those that support crew in orbit. going to talk about COS. its first trip into space. was selected through competitive selection procedure. instrument delivered in spite of adversity, including mission cancellation. I did a Tiger Woods 'fist pump' after installation done.

Preston Burch: today's EVA was absolutely amazing. we struggled a bit first two days. still kind of scratching our heads why previous days had such glitches while today went so smooth. this was 21st EVA in Hubble servicing. at this point in time hubble has reached new high in its capabilities. jill maguire developed tools for this mission, is in audience today. it takes a huge team of people to put together these missions, and they deserve recognition.

Dave Leckrone: after first 2 days some of us were pale, today more than made up for the anguish and fright of the first days. Adversity made super-human effort possible to get all this done. we're batting a thousand, 100% succes so far. ACS was dead, and has now demonstrated to be alive. functional test tonight. Jill and her team and so many others who worked on tools and other stuff did great and deserve recognition. in SM3b we did awesome repair on NICMOS, Ed Chang(?) was master mind in repair there, and on this too. He is the man that brings dead instruments back. Hope we won't see that more often! much more capabilities now, can't wait to see data return. Looking forward to succesful STIS repair tomorrow so we'll have two spectrographs. Hope things will go as smoothly as they did today.

q: ?
a: we succesfully completed aliveness test. this test uses side 1 of electronics to do some of basic electronics. we have new electronics now that's mounted externally to the instrument. new boxes provide functionality for wide field and hires parts. functional testing should be finished 10 PM central. we'll know tomorrow morning if we got widefield and hires channel back. widefield was a little easier, was easier to access, would have liked to do same to hires, but couldn't.

q: you were into the earlier mission, the robotic mission, and now this one, what was going through your mind?
a: we had a really good start with the COS installation, general feeling of confidence, both on ground and in orbiter. rehearsed this a LOT, put lot of emphasis on ACS repair, and it paid off. development of the wonderful electronics for ACS , last instrument to fail, was done in really compressed time, and tools even more so. teams did really well, that's sort of how it unfolded, it was really amazing. we borrowed some tools and techniques that were already developed for the STIS repair. we have high hopes for that repair tomorrow as well

q: on the STIS repair: is there some robotic heritage there, you know, for the mission that did not happen?
a: hubble servicing team was challenged to come up with robotic solutions, first basic things like gyros etc, came up with some things to do that, then started working on replacing instruments by robot. Jill Maguire(sp? sorry Jill) and tema came up with a lot of tools and technology for the robot. some people found repairing STIS robotically scary. two teams came up with ideas. Goddard thought of the fastner capture plate to captivate the 111 bolts that are going to come out of the cover plate tomorrow. West coast outfit thought of instrument to automatically remove all fastners.

q: more on the STIS and COS in tandem?
a: the partnership between these... COS is 'go for broke', go for really faint light. STIS was more specialised for a specific scientific purpose. (specificaly designed to study ISM via light from quasars). Studied SMBHs, COS is UV, different details, coarser than the detailed from STIS. coarse saw vs fine saw. they back each other up at some level, wonder tandem team. I'm a former spectroscopist, I might go back to that.

q: what else besides the 111 screws tomorrow?
a: after the 111 screws more straight forward repair work. to replaced board is right in front. with Jill's tools it's a straight forward job. Certainly not easy, but practiced very well. the 111 take about 40 minutes, ish, was like nascar changing tires phrrt, phrrt, phrrt.

q: does it feel the mission turned a corner today?
a: yeah, that's a feeling that we have, somewhat. things we thought would go quick and smooth had some trouble, the stuff that had more risk turned out to be more easy. but all has some level of risk associated, we won't get complacent of cocky but we do enjoy the moment. the goal is next 2 days go as well as today.
The end is in sight, but a long way to get there, we don't want to mess it up. it aint over until the fat lady sings. we don't know who that is but..

q: with ACS done, does that more STIS down in the priority. Now that there is extra time, is there anything that you say that "now we have time for this?"
a: our plan for tomorrow is STIS, and that will take up pretty much all day. so theoretically STIS is a little lower prio, still want to get it done. Batteries will have to wait for day 5. FGS on day 5. in addition we brought to orbit noble7(?), we'd like to get that in order(? dunno what talking about.. HELP!)
talking about ACS part 2? there really is no additional time we saved, due to changed mission plan wrt to the new control electronics

q: one out of ACS/STIS success would mean mission succes. still so after ACS succes?
a: we don't drop one part of the mission after all training. we discussed a lot which was more important but we want BOTH repaired. FGS has more priority than STIS. Only circumstance while we would NOT do STIS repair, was if there was some kind of issue with orbiter and you can only do ONE more EVA. in that case we would drop EVA4 and do EVA5. Fine guidance sensor does now have more priority than STIS.
q: would STIS repair fail be a big disappointment?
a: yeah spectroscopists would be disappointment but we said from start, this is really difficult, we may not totally succeed,
q: you said yesterday today would be easiest, you were right, how do you say tomorrow goes?
dave: john could do this sleepwalking and did it even bettter fully conscious. I say tomorrow will go even better. If i'm wrong, let's go out and get a drink tomorrow.

q: ?
a: biggest worry for tomorrow was the 111 screws, but based on what john did today we are a bit more confident that we'll get it right.

briefing ends.

__________________
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge" -- Charles Darwin
"Your right to hold an opinion is not being contested. Your expectation that it be taken seriously is." -- Jason Thompson
Meet the OOONG TOE.

One of these is the weakest link:

NASA Space Shuttle Mission Pages
NASA STS-125 Mission Status Updates
NASA STS-125 Mission Information
NASA STS-125 Mission Overview
NASA Hubble Space Telescope Servicing Mission 4 Overview
NASA News Twitter
Wikipedia: STS-125
NASA Launch Schedule
NASA Kennedy Space Center Shuttle Countdown Status
NASA Shuttle Launch and Landing
NASA Shuttle Launch Blog (active about 6 hours before liftoff)
NASA Shuttle Landing Blog (active about 2 hours before touchdown)
National Weather Service, Southeast Sector, Base Reflectivity
National Weather Service, Melbourne Florida, Hourly Weather Forecast Graph
CBS News Space Place
Spaceflight Now STS-125 Mission Coverage
Spaceflight Now STS-125 Mission Status Center
BANews Twitter
BAUT Forum topic STS-119 Space Shuttle Mission (previous mission)
NASA TV (or NASA TV Yahoo! source or high-resolution)

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Good job transcribing the briefing, slang.

From the EVA docs and a little Google work, NOBL is the New Outer Blanket Layer, a replacement exterior panel. They brought NOBLs for bays 5, 7, and 8. It looks like NOBLs 5 and 8 have stick-on radiators that have to be installed, while NOBL 7 is just a plain panel. NOBL 8 will be installed during EVA 4, NOBL 5 the next day, but NOBL 7 is one of those "if we can find the time" items.

Oh, and here's where I got that from (recommended for serious geeks only):
STS-125 flight data files

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“There’s nothing that spells progress in large, friendly letters like trying to combine two totally incompatible technologies.” – David Szondy, Tales of Future Past.

Thank you for the transcript, slang!

noble 7 = NOBL, New Outer Blanket Layer

Oh, I see George moves faster than I...

Thanks a lot guys, completely missed that acronym. Typing like mad leaves little time to google Glad to see it wasn't for naught.

__________________
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge" -- Charles Darwin
"Your right to hold an opinion is not being contested. Your expectation that it be taken seriously is." -- Jason Thompson
Meet the OOONG TOE.

COS works! \o/

(http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts125/status.html)

o/\o !

__________________
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge" -- Charles Darwin
"Your right to hold an opinion is not being contested. Your expectation that it be taken seriously is." -- Jason Thompson
Meet the OOONG TOE.

And I'm still employed!

Madness?

This! Is! NASA!

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I want to go back to the moon.
I don't care which rocket you use, whichever one you pick, I'll like it, I swear.
"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek

CBS News Space Place

Not unexpected. The high-res channel fix was a bit of an experiment, and there's still hope.

Other more certain fix for the wide-field channel probably took:

===

Coming up (times EDT):

05/17/09:
05:31 AM: Crew wakeup
09:16 AM: EVA-4 begins
09:46 AM: STIS repair
02:16 PM: Bay 8 NOBL
03:46 PM: EVA-4 ends
04:45 PM: Mission briefing
06:11 PM: HD downlink
09:31 PM: Crew sleep begins
09:45 PM: HST update
10:00 PM: Daily highlights

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CBS News Space Place

===

About 2 hours from EVA-4.

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Over Australia now, ....The crew are donning / helping don, the suits for EVA...
ahem...I mean it's okay to watch. They are 'decent' and all.....

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clear skies

If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. CARL SAGAN

Mak: Pass the pepperoni please.
Fazor: "Hail, Bautainia! We pledge our hearts to thee! Science and woo, some babbling too, and astron-oh-meee!"
slang: And it made ash out of yew and tree.

Great link George! Thanks.
For serious geeks: Today they're going to do pages 86-108 in EVA Checklist (PDF 122.6 Mb).

By the way, the Bad Astronomer is twittering the repair of "his" STIS at Twitter: BANews.

BA Blog: Why I’m watching the Hubble repairs so intently

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Stuck in space.

Spaceflight Now STS-125 Mission Status Center

A handrail needs to be removed before work on the STIS happens. One of four bolts is not turning.

Plan C is to remove the handrail posts. Ah, just heard they're getting the Vise-Grips! I usually start with Vise-Grips and move up to the explosives.

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Sounds like they've decided to get the breaker bar and just bust the thing off.

This just in: sounds like they'll be using some duct tape, too!

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If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers.

NASA Twitter:

Break it! Break it!

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SPARTAAAAAAAAA!!! (again)

I hope all goes well.

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To the regular visitor of internet bulletin boards it is clear that it's an excellent idea your parents get to choose your real name.

..and the handrail is off.

Sure wish they had waited until there was TV coverage before doing that.

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"The facts gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching." Isaac Asimov

NASA - Note to self, on future repair missions, have mission specialist from Army Corp of Engineers, Demolition Unit.

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009
All moderation in purple

Let the unscrewing begin!

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Back to "regularly scheduled programing".

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"The facts gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching." Isaac Asimov

NASA Twitter:

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Excellent....thanks for the info.

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"The facts gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching." Isaac Asimov

Power tool suddenly not turning.

They have a spare.

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39 of 111 screws done. Changing bit for next size screws.

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Over half of the screws have been removed.

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Keeper of the Jabberwock

From Bueno..."my feet warmed up".

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"The facts gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching." Isaac Asimov

I thought I kept hearing 'Bueno'. Who or what is Bueno?

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Keeper of the Jabberwock

As "Mass" is the nickname for mission specialist Mike Massimino, "Bueno" is the nickname for mission specialist Mike Good.

Good...bueno...

The basic reason being that they are both named Mike, so to avoid confusion...

__________________
"The facts gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching." Isaac Asimov