Servicing the Hubble: Shuttle mission plans refined

Published: Dec 06, 2005
Source: www.spaceflightnow.com



Preparations for a shuttle mission to upgrade and repair the Hubble Space Telescope in late 2007 or early 2008 are picking up steam as engineers map out the details of a five-spacewalk flight designed to keep the venerable observatory alive and well through at least 2013.

Servicing Mission 4, canceled by former NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe in January 2004, is expected to be officially reinstated by current Administrator Mike Griffin if the next shuttle mission, STS-121, goes smoothly and if ongoing analyses show the flight can be conducted in relative safety.

"For any given single mission, I would say that the Hubble servicing represents the highest priority utilization of a single shuttle mission that I can conceive," Griffin said in a recent interview. "Because servicing the Hubble is something only the shuttle can do, it's only one flight and is, therefore, I think a very high agency priority if we can do it technically."continue..