Camera That Took Spectacular Photos Is Now A Museum Piece
Two key instruments from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have a
new home in the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in
Washington after being returned to Earth aboard space shuttle
Atlantis last May.
Astronauts brought back the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2,
or WFPC-2, and the Corrective Optics Space Telescope Axial
Replacement, or COSTAR, after more than 15 years in space. The
camera returned the iconic images that now adorn posters, album
covers, the Internet, classrooms and science text books
worldwide.
"This was the camera that saved Hubble," said Ed Weiler,
associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA
Headquarters in Washington. "I have looked forward for a long time
to stand in front of this very instrument while on display to the
public."
After Hubble's launch and deployment aboard the shuttle in 1990,
scientists realized the telescope's primary mirror had a flaw,
known as a spherical aberration. The outer edge of the mirror was
ground too flat by a depth of 2.2 microns, roughly equal to
one-fiftieth the thickness of a human hair. This tiny flaw resulted
in fuzzy images because some of the light from the objects being
studied was scattered.
Hubble's first servicing mission provided the telescope with
hardware that basically acted as eye glasses. Launched in December
1993 aboard space shuttle Endeavour, the mission added the WFPC-2,
about the size of a baby grand piano, and COSTAR, about the size of
a telephone booth. The WFPC-2 had the optical fix built in, while
the COSTAR provided the optical correction for other Hubble
instruments.
The WFPC-2 made more than 135,000 observations of celestial
objects from 1993 to 2009. The camera was the longest serving and
most prolific instrument aboard Hubble.
"For years the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 has been taking
pictures of the universe," said John Trauger of NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "Today, we are
taking pictures of the WFPC-2 and I guess if there was ever a
camera that deserves to have its picture taken, this is it."
The Hubble instruments will be on display in the National Air
and Space Museum's Space Hall through mid-December. They then will
travel to Southern California to go on temporary display at several
venues. In March 2010, the instruments will return to the
Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, where they will take up permanent
residency.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory designed and built the WFPC-2.
The COSTAR instrument was built by Ball Aerospace in Boulder,
Colorado. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international
cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. The project
is managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt,
Maryland. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore
conducts Hubble science operations. The institute is operated for
NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy
Inc., in Washington.