STS-125 Shuttle Mission: Hubble Servicing Mission 4 - Page 4

crosscountry · #91 (**permalink**) 16-March-2009, 03:57 PM

what? recover it? not gonna happen.

KaiYeves · #92 (**permalink**) 16-March-2009, 10:38 PM

Well, I said "unless" and "would".

I really would like to see the real Hubble in a museum someday. A recovery mission would be a nice last hurrah for the space shuttle program.

Yeah, I know, not going to happen, like you said.

crosscountry · #93 (**permalink**) 17-March-2009, 04:57 AM

I'd rather see Hubble serviced so that we can use it another 10 years. The pictures will live a long time.

Ever heard the expression,"take a picture, it will last longer"?

Hubble's legacy is already set, now if we could enhance that it'd be great.

KaiYeves · #94 (**permalink**) 17-March-2009, 11:37 PM

I'm not saying that I don't want it serviced. I want it to last as long as it possibly can, THEN I want it recovered.

crosscountry · #95 (**permalink**) 18-March-2009, 02:13 AM

we can hope. I think the Shuttle will be forgotten by that time.

KaiYeves · #96 (**permalink**) 18-March-2009, 10:28 PM

Would that be the only way to do it? Could any other vehicle do the job?

crosscountry · #97 (**permalink**) 19-March-2009, 10:58 PM

a space elevator, but that's a long way off. bringing things back from space is very difficult.

cjameshuff · #98 (**permalink**) 19-March-2009, 11:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by crosscountry

a space elevator, but that's a long way off. bringing things back from space is very difficult.

Why bring it back? Dock it to one of Bigelow's habitats as part of an orbital museum...

Granted, this rather restricts the audience...but you could even keep it somewhat-operational, if on life support. And it would at least preserve it for future return to the Earth's surface.

RGClark · #99 (**permalink**) 20-March-2009, 02:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cjameshuff

Why bring it back? Dock it to one of Bigelow's habitats as part of an orbital museum...

Granted, this rather restricts the audience...but you could even keep it somewhat-operational, if on life support. And it would at least preserve it for future return to the Earth's surface.

I like that idea.

Bob Clark

KaiYeves · #**100** (**permalink**) 20-March-2009, 08:22 PM

Actually, that probably is a better idea.

mugaliens · #**101** (**permalink**) 20-March-2009, 10:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ToSeek

Lesson learned: never assume that something will never need fixing.

Even small, hardened steel spheres or the grooves in which they roll!

Ball bearing failure modes...

01101001 · #**102** (**permalink**) 27-March-2009, 06:46 AM

Links (void where prohibited)
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)
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)

===

NASA Launch Schedule

Quote:

Date: May 12 +
Mission: STS-125
Launch Vehicle: Space Shuttle Atlantis
Launch Site: Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39A
Description: Space Shuttle Atlantis will fly seven astronauts into space for the fifth and final servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. During the 11-day flight, the crew will repair and improve the observatory's capabilities.

Date: May 15 +
Mission: STS-127
Launch Vehicle: Space Shuttle Endeavour
Launch Site: Kennedy Space Center - Launch Pad 39A
Description: Space shuttle Endeavour will deliver the exposed facility of Japan's Kibo laboratory to the International Space Station.

Is that right? Two targeted within 3 days?

Edit: Right. But... Wikipedia: STS-127:

Quote:

If STS-125 launches in May, NASA has stated they plan to reschedule STS-127 for June 13, 2009.

01101001 · #**103** (**permalink**) 09-April-2009, 10:14 PM

CBS News Space Place

Quote:

The last published launch time was 1:21 p.m. EDT, about 20 minutes into the Hubble launch window. But flight planners may adjust that pending additional analysis of payload weight and ascent performance margin.

Launch target
2009 May 12, 1021 PDT, Tuesday
2009 May 12, 1321 EDT, Tuesday
2009 May 12, 1721 UTC, Tuesday

33 days to launch

crosscountry · #**104** (**permalink**) 10-April-2009, 02:45 PM

wow, I really want it to happen this time.

01101001 · #**105** (**permalink**) 10-April-2009, 06:59 PM

CBS News Space Place

Quote:

11:35 AM, 4/10/09, Update: Shuttle Endeavour, Hubble rescue shuttle, moved to VAB

The space shuttle Endeavour, the designated rescue ship for next month's Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission, was hauled from its processing hangar to the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center early Friday for attachment to an external tank and solid-fuel boosters. Rollout to pad 39B is planned for April 17.

Wikipedia: STS-400:

Quote:

STS-400 is the Space Shuttle contingency support (Launch on Need) flight, which would be launched using Space Shuttle Endeavour should a major problem occur during STS-125, the final Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission (HST SM-4).

Amber Robot · #**106** (**permalink**) 10-April-2009, 07:04 PM

Is there a date for the STS-400 rollout? Or is it not on the pad unless they need it?

01101001 · #**107** (**permalink**) 10-April-2009, 07:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amber Robot

Is there a date for the STS-400 rollout? Or is it not on the pad unless they need it?

April 17.

Amber Robot · #**108** (**permalink**) 10-April-2009, 10:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 01101001

April 17.

Oops.. I misread the earlier post. What is (or was) the rollout date for STS-125 then?

01101001 · #**109** (**permalink**) 10-April-2009, 10:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amber Robot

What is (or was) the rollout date for STS-125 then?

Done deal. End of March.

CBS News Space Place

Quote:

3:00 PM, 3/31/09, Update: Shuttle Atlantis hauled to launch pad
The space shuttle Atlantis, bolted to a mobile launch platform atop an Apollo-era crawler-transporter, was hauled to launch pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center Tuesday [...]

mahesh · #**110** (**permalink**) 11-April-2009, 04:27 PM

With about one month to go (launch windows being favourable), we approach a veritable historic moment in Space Exploration by humans.

Two shuttles, Atlantis and Endeavour, up during the same week in May.
A landmark first! Plus the ISS and Hubble...okay, enough hardware, already, make this a magnificient event.
There will be seventeen human beings up there!

End of May, also marks President Kennedy's birthday! He would have been ninety two! ...if I've my math right.......
These space events would be underlining, his vision of Space Exploration by humans, when he talked about ..and other things..at Rice University, all those years ago. He would have been proud of our achievements, made possible through complimentary international efforts of brilliant scientists and engineers and communities of other inspirational humans, teachers / parents....

Wishing ye all, a happy day!

01101001 · #**111** (**permalink**) 11-April-2009, 05:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mahesh

Two shuttles, Atlantis and Endeavour, up during the same week in May.

I hope not. That would mean Atlantis crew needed rescue.

Endeavour stays on the ground unless needed in May as STS-400. Hopefully, it will do its own STS-127 mission later in June.

mahesh · #**112** (**permalink**) 11-April-2009, 05:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 01101001

I hope not. That would mean Atlantis crew needed rescue.

Endeavour stays on the ground unless needed in May as STS-400. Hopefully, it will do its own STS-127 mission later in June.

I mis-read this note of NASA launch schedule release:

http://www.nasa.gov/missions/highlights/schedule.html

Quote:

Date: May 12 +
Mission: STS-125
Launch Vehicle: Space Shuttle Atlantis
Launch Site: Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39A
Description: Space Shuttle Atlantis will fly seven astronauts into space for the fifth and final servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. During the 11-day flight, the crew will repair and improve the observatory's capabilities.

Date: May 15 +
Mission: STS-127
Launch Vehicle: Space Shuttle Endeavour
Launch Site: Kennedy Space Center - Launch Pad 39A
Description: Space shuttle Endeavour will deliver the exposed facility of Japan's Kibo laboratory to the International Space Station.

It sounds quite awesomely fantastic.

Anyhow, the shuttle programme is fantastic and what we do do and achieve.

A fundamentally, beautiful international effort. We should all be proud.

01101001 · #**113** (**permalink**) 11-April-2009, 06:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mahesh

I mis-read this note of NASA launch schedule release:

Me, too, first time. With the dates, I think they were just covering the launch-on-need STS-400 role for Endeavour. At least their launch table should have used that mission number instead of STS-127, but a big footnote that explained would have been even better.

There's a subtle issue in those plans, too, that they both use Launch Pad 39A, the STS-400 rolling out after launch of STS-125. I think that was a plan, reserving 39B for some Ares testing. But, now I think they two shuttles will be on 39A and 39B. (From January: Spaceflight Now: One launch pad or two? No decision for Hubble mission)

KaiYeves · #**114** (**permalink**) 11-April-2009, 09:23 PM

As soon as the mission is over, they're going to do the Ares conversion. Just like they started converting 39 to space shuttles as soon as the Saturn for the ASTP took off.

schlaugh · #**115** (**permalink**) 14-April-2009, 05:49 PM

The Times has a story on Dr. John Grunsfeld who will be making his fifth trip into orbit to lead the Hubble servicing efforts.

Quote:

Last Voyage for the Keeper of the Hubble
By DENNIS OVERBYE
Published: April 13, 2009
HOUSTON — John Grunsfeld was sitting in an astronomical meeting in Atlanta in January of 2004 when he got a message to come back to headquarters in Washington to talk about the Hubble Space Telescope.

To say that he was excited would be an understatement. As an astronaut, Dr. Grunsfeld had twice journeyed to space to make repairs on humanity’s most vaunted eye on the cosmos, experiences he had described to a high-level panel pondering Hubble’s fate only a few months before as the most meaningful in his life. He was looking forward to leading the third and final servicing mission, which had been delayed by the loss of the shuttle Columbia and its crew the year before.

Thinking that the mission was now being scheduled, Dr. Grunsfeld raced to Washington, only to learn that Sean O’Keefe, NASA’s administrator, had canceled it on the ground that it was too risky. Wearing his other hat as NASA’s chief scientist, Dr. Grunsfeld now had the job of telling the world that the space agency was basically abandoning its greatest scientific instrument at the same time that it was laying plans for the even riskier and more expensive effort to return humans to the Moon.

He said he felt as if he had been hit by a two-by-four.

“Being an astronaut, there are not a lot of things that have really shocked me in my life,” Dr. Grunsfeld said in a recent interview. But, he added, “I don’t think anybody could ever prepare themselves for, you know, trying to bury something that they have said, ‘Hey, this is worth risking my life for.’ ”

KaiYeves · #**116** (**permalink**) 14-April-2009, 10:32 PM

Wonderful article. My father showed it to me earlier. What a great man.

ToSeek · #**117** (**permalink**) 14-April-2009, 11:09 PM

I think I've mentioned this before, but there was a tremendous positive reaction from the folks in the auditorium at Goddard when Grunsfeld was announced as one of the crew members for the servicing mission.

mahesh · #**118** (**permalink**) 14-April-2009, 11:16 PM

Thank you schlaugh, for a most timely, wonderful link.
Dr Grunsfeld's audio slideshow with NY Times, is great. Nice to hear him.

Thank you, kindly.

edit:
Nice, ToSeek!

crosscountry · #**119** (**permalink**) 15-April-2009, 03:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by schlaugh

The Times has a story on Dr. John Grunsfeld who will be making his fifth trip into orbit to lead the Hubble servicing efforts.

I just received that in an email and came here to post it.

01101001 · #**120** (**permalink**) 17-April-2009, 02:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 01101001

Florida Today: NASA: [STS-119] Shuttle's risk of debris strike up 6 percent

Quote:

NASA is still assessing the risk to the upcoming Hubble repair space shuttle mission, targeted to fly in late May. The danger to this trip could be greater, managers said, because that shuttle is set to take its crew to an altitude of about 372 miles (600 km), putting it much closer to the range of the collision than the space station is.

CBS News Space Place

Quote:

Orbital debris risk for Hubble flight less severe than expected

Even factoring in a recent satellite collision, an analysis of the threat posed by space debris at the Hubble Space Telescope's 350-mile-high altitude shows the crew of shuttle Atlantis, scheduled for launch May 12 on a mission to service the observatory, will not face a dramatically higher risk of potentially catastrophic damage, a NASA official said today.

While the overall risk of impact damage is higher for a Hubble mission than a flight to the International Space Station, which orbits at a lower, less debris-filled altitude, the actual numbers are better than flight planners initially expected.

"It's not going to keep us on the ground," Steve Stich, manager of the orbiter project office at the Johnson Space Center, said in an interview. "Obviosuly, we know we're accepting a little higher risk for this flight. That's why we've tracked it very carefully."

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