Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/14/hubble_grapple/
Atlantis grapples Hubble
First chance to stretch space legs today, too
Posted in Space, 14th May 2009 08:52 GMT
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Space shuttle Atlantis yesterday deployed its robotic arm to successfully capture the Hubble Space Telescope, NASA reports (http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/).
At the controls for the "grapple" (see pic) was mission specialist Megan McArthur, who grabbed the venerable eye in the sky at 17:14 GMT before manoeuvring it onto a "Flight Support System maintenance platform" in Atlantis's payload bay.
Astronauts John Grunsfeld and Drew Feustel are now preparing for the first of STS-125's five spacewalks. They're scheduled to get down to work at 12:16 GMT today, taking out Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 and installing the new Wide Field Camera 3 (http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/servicing/SM4/main/WFC3_FS_HTML.html).
They'll also replace the failed data processing unit which caused (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/16/hubble_back_up/) considerable delays in this final servicing mission to Hubble, and are additionally tasked with attaching a "soft capture mechanism" which will allow a future mission to "capture Hubble for de-orbit at the end of its life".
On the ground, NASA continues to examine images of Atlantis's thermal protection tiles. Although mission managers have declared them "safe for re-entry", the shuttle's crew was earlier today told that "imagery from scans of the underbelly and scans of the crew cabin did not sufficiently overlap".
This means there is a row of 16 tiles "in an area of the port side of the shuttle's nose" not completely covered. NASA has requested further imagery of the offending area - a quick 45-minute survey which it hopes can be done on flight day 5.
NASA has a STS-125 mission summary here (pdf) (http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/339297main_STS125%20MissionSummary.pdf) and overview here (http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/hst_sm4/overview.html). ®