Truly Amazing Effort Ends With Triumph
NASA is rebuilding its can-do image this week with the
apparently successful completion of the extremely aggressive Hubble
repair mission.
STS-125 mission specialists John Grunsfeld and Drew Feustel
completed the fifth and final spacewalk on the Hubble Space
Telescope Monday at 3:22 p.m. EDT. Outside the airlock hatch,
Grunsfeld said, "This is a really tremendous adventure that
we’ve been on, a very challenging mission. Hubble isn’t
just a satellite- it’s about humanity’s quest for
knowledge."
He also thanked several people who contributed to Hubble and the
servicing mission, then went on to say,
"A tour de force of tools and human ingenuity. On this mission
in particular, the only way of finding the limits of the possible
is by going beyond them into the impossible. On this mission, we
tried some things that some people said were
impossible….We’ve achieved that, and we wish Hubble
the very best. It’s really a sign of the great country that
we live in that we’re able to do things like this on a
marvelous spaceship, like space shuttle Atlantis. I’m
convinced that if we can solve problems, like repairing Hubble,
getting into space, doing the servicing we do, travelling 17,500
mph around the Earth, we can achieve other great things, like
solving the energy problems and climate problems- all of the things
that are in the middle of NASA’s prime and core values. As
Drew and I go into the airlock, I want to wish Hubble its own set
of adventures and with the new instruments that we’ve
installed that it may unlock further mysteries of the
universe."
Grunsfeld and Feustel finished the mission’s battery
replacement work. They worked in the telescope’s Bay 3 to
replace the second of two battery modules. Each module weighs 460
pounds and contains three batteries, providing electrical power to
support Hubble operations during the night portion of its orbit.
The first battery module was installed during the second
spacewalk.
They also replaced one of the telescope’s fine guidance
sensors. The sensors are used to provide pointing information and
also serve as a scientific instrument for determining relative
position and motion of stars.
After those two tasks were accomplished, Feustel and Grunsfeld
turned their attention to the New Outer Blanket Layer (NOBL) on the
outside of the telescope’s Bay 5, Bay 8 and Bay 7, which
normally face in the direction of Hubble’s orbital travel.
These blankets were expected to deteriorate more in the space
environment. The NOBL on Bay 8 was to be installed during the
fourth spacewalk, but the crew was unable to accomplish it due to
work on a stripped bolt.
Monday’s spacewalk lasted 7 hours and 2 minutes.