- Status
What an absolutely fantastic mission! My hat's off to everyone involved. Now I'm looking forward to the next mission woohoo 
Back to the land of reality.
Many Thanks to Wayne for closing the loop to the mountain where I was playing hermit and consuming insane amounts of adult beverage. Did not see or hear a thing. Drove past Edwards on the way home but the runway is 15 miles off the road.
Andrew, The Shuttle training aircraft is a Grumman G-2 not a T-38. It simulates the flying brick show by deploying speed brakes in flight.
Shuttle Guy, I hoisted at least one to you.
Very happy to see all home safe.
Many Thanks to Wayne for closing the loop to the mountain where I was playing hermit and consuming insane amounts of adult beverage. Did not see or hear a thing. Drove past Edwards on the way home but the runway is 15 miles off the road.
Andrew, The Shuttle training aircraft is a Grumman G-2 not a T-38. It simulates the flying brick show by deploying speed brakes in flight.
Shuttle Guy, I hoisted at least one to you.
Very happy to see all home safe.
Testing":317qsidf said:
Me too!
(In all firness to Andrew, at least one of the wire services captioned the Gulfstream as a T-38 too.)
They are now lifting Atlantis atop the shuttle carrier aircraft (SCA):
Nice blog about mating Atlantis with SCA: http://damarisbsarria.blogspot.com/
(Of course it will be updated sooner or later and may contain something else at that time, but now it has lots of pictures and some insider comments about the process)
[EDIT]The mate of Atlantis to the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft was completed at 7:55 a.m. EDT (4:55 a.m. PDT).[/EDIT]
Nice blog about mating Atlantis with SCA: http://damarisbsarria.blogspot.com/
(Of course it will be updated sooner or later and may contain something else at that time, but now it has lots of pictures and some insider comments about the process)
[EDIT]The mate of Atlantis to the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft was completed at 7:55 a.m. EDT (4:55 a.m. PDT).[/EDIT]
Spaceflightnow reports:
Shuttle Atlantis began its cross-country ferryflight atop a 747 carrier jet today, departing Edwards Air Force Base in California at 8:06 a.m. local (11:06 a.m. EDT). The shuttle is headed for an overnight stop in El Paso, Texas.
I will unstick this thread now that Atlantis is finally on the rest of the way home.
Shuttle Atlantis began its cross-country ferryflight atop a 747 carrier jet today, departing Edwards Air Force Base in California at 8:06 a.m. local (11:06 a.m. EDT). The shuttle is headed for an overnight stop in El Paso, Texas.
I will unstick this thread now that Atlantis is finally on the rest of the way home.
MeteorWayne":7rx8vyax said:
You can follow the fligh from: http://flightaware.com/live/flight/NASA911
NASA's official shuttle ferry blog: http://blogs.nasa.gov/cm/blog/shuttleferry
Atlantis atop SCA is heading to Lackland Afb for refuelling: http://flightaware.com/live/flight/NASA911
[EDIT]Ok, they were already left from Lackland Afb and they are now almost at Columbus Afb which is their next stop.[/EDIT]
[EDIT]Ok, they were already left from Lackland Afb and they are now almost at Columbus Afb which is their next stop.[/EDIT]
Hubble Space Telescope Status Report06.24.09 On June 22, at 12:21 PM EDT, the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) aboard Hubble temporarily suspended operations when an optical mechanism movement failed to reach its intended destination. The HST team quickly identified the root cause which required a minor update to the COS flight software. COS was successfully brought out of suspend mode on June 23. None of this week’s scheduled COS activities have been lost.
On June 23, at 12:20 PM EDT, the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) aboard Hubble suspended operations. No ACS commands were being executing at the time. A team has been formed to investigate the anomaly. ACS activities planned for this week are on hold.
The team reports that the WFC3, STIS, and COS instrument activities are proceeding as planned.
On June 23, at 12:20 PM EDT, the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) aboard Hubble suspended operations. No ACS commands were being executing at the time. A team has been formed to investigate the anomaly. ACS activities planned for this week are on hold.
The team reports that the WFC3, STIS, and COS instrument activities are proceeding as planned.
Wide Field Planetary Camera 2, recently returned from the HST has been prepared for shipment back to Goddard for examination.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubbl ... e2009.html
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubbl ... e2009.html
Hubble Space Telescope Status Reportm 07.02.09
The HST team investigating the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) anomaly presented findings and recommendations to the HST project on June 30 that included a plan to bring the instrument out of suspend mode later this week. It has been off line since June 23.
The HST Servicing Mission Orbital Verification (SMOV) schedule is otherwise progressing well. The HST team successfully performed a number of alignment and focus checks on the Wide Field Camera 3 instrument over the weekend and took an external image with the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph. The Cosmic Origins Spectrograph Far Ultraviolet Detector also completed its high voltage turn-on test and is ready for routine SMOV operations
The HST team investigating the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) anomaly presented findings and recommendations to the HST project on June 30 that included a plan to bring the instrument out of suspend mode later this week. It has been off line since June 23.
The HST Servicing Mission Orbital Verification (SMOV) schedule is otherwise progressing well. The HST team successfully performed a number of alignment and focus checks on the Wide Field Camera 3 instrument over the weekend and took an external image with the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph. The Cosmic Origins Spectrograph Far Ultraviolet Detector also completed its high voltage turn-on test and is ready for routine SMOV operations
A pilot describes flying Atlantis home.
This NASA pilot was new to the Boeing 747/Shuttle Orbiter combo. (Sandra and I witnessed the fly by and landing at KSC. The weather was fantastic. As a side note...they must fly the 747 with the Orbiyer on top below 15,000 feet to avoid causing damage to the Shuttle Orbiter which is essentially powered down during the ferry flight. )
From: Triple Nickel
Sent: Thursday, June 04, 2009 9:34 PM
Subject: (JSCAS ) Shuttle Carry
Well, it's been 48 hours since I landed the 747 with the shuttle Atlantis on top and I am still buzzing from the experience. I have to say that my whole mind, body and soul went into the professional mode just before engine start in Mississippi, and stayed there, where it all needed to be, until well after the flight...in fact, I am not sure if it is all back to normal as I type this email. The experience was surreal.
Seeing that "thing" on top of an already overly huge aircraft boggles my mind. The whole mission from takeoff to engine shutdown was unlike anything I had ever done. It was like a dream...someone else's dream.
We took off from Columbus AFB on their 12,000 foot runway, of which I used 11,999 1/2 feet to get the wheels off the ground. We were at 3,500 feet left to go of the runway, throttles full power, nose wheels still hugging the ground, copilot calling out decision speeds, the weight of Atlantis now screaming through my fingers clinched tightly on the controls, tires heating up to their near maximum temperature from the speed and the weight, and not yet at rotation speed, the speed at which I would be pulling on the controls to get the nose to rise. I just could not wait, and I mean I COULD NOT WAIT, and started pulling early. If I had waited until rotation speed, we would not have rotated enough to get airborne by the end of the runway. So I pulled on the controls early and started our rotation to the takeoff attitude. The wheels finally lifted off as we passed over the stripe marking the end of the runway and my next hurdle (physically) was a line of trees 1,000 feet off the departure end of Runway 16. All I knew was we were flying and so I directed the gear to be retracted and the flaps to be moved from Flaps 20 to Flaps 10 as I pulled even harder on the controls. I must say, those trees were beginning to look a lot like those brushes in the drive through car washes so I pulled even harder yet! I think I saw a bird just fold its wings and fall out of a tree as if to say "Oh just take me". Okay, we cleared the trees, duh, but it was way too close for my laundry. As we started to actually climb, at only 100 feet per minute, I smelled something that reminded me of touring the Heineken Brewery in Europe...I said "is that a skunk I smell?" and the veterans of shuttle carrying looked at me and smiled and said "Tires"!
I said "TIRES??? OURS???" They smiled and shook their heads as if to call their Captain an amateur...okay, at that point I was. The tires were so hot you could smell them in the cockpit. My mind could not get over, from this point on, that this was something I had never experienced.
Where's your mom when you REALLY need her?
The flight down to Florida was an eternity. We cruised at 250 knots indicated, giving us about 315 knots of ground speed at 15,000'. The miles didn't click by like I am use to them clicking by in a fighter jet at MACH .94. We were burning fuel at a rate of 40,000 pounds per hour or 130 pounds per mile, or one gallon every length of the fuselage. The vibration in the cockpit was mild, compared to down below and to the rear of the fuselage where it reminded me of that football game I had as a child where you turned it on and the players vibrated around the board. I felt like if I had plastic clips on my boots I could have vibrated to any spot in the fuselage I wanted to go without moving my legs...and the noise was deafening. The 747 flies with its nose 5 degrees up in the air to stay level, and when you bank, it feels like the shuttle is trying to say "hey, let's roll completely over on our back"..not a good thing I kept telling myself. SO I limited my bank angle to 15 degrees and even though a 180 degree course change took a full zip code to complete, it was the safe way to turn this monster.
Airliners and even a flight of two F-16s deviated from their flight plans to catch a glimpse of us along the way. We dodged what was in reality very few clouds and storms, despite what everyone thought, and arrived in Florida with 51,000 pounds of fuel too much to land with. We can't land heavier than 600,000 pounds total weight and so we had to do something with that fuel. I had an idea...let's fly low and slow and show this beast off to all the taxpayers in Florida lucky enough to be outside on that Tuesday afternoon. So at Ormond Beach we let down to 1,000 feet above the ground/water and flew just east of the beach out over the water. Then, once we reached the NASA airspace of the Kennedy Space Center, we cut over to the Banana/Indian Rivers and flew down the middle of them to show the people of Titusville, Port St.Johns and Melbourne just what a 747 with a shuttle on it looked like. We stayed at 1,000 feet and since we were dragging our flaps at "Flaps 5", our speed was down to around 190 to 210 knots. We could see traffic stopping in the middle of roads to take a look. We heard later that a Little League Baseball game stop to look and everyone cheered as we became their 7th inning stretch. Oh say can you see...
After reaching Vero Beach, we turned north to follow the coast line back up to the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF). There was not one person laying on the beach...they were all standing and waving! "What a sight" I thought...and figured they were thinking the same thing. All this time I was bugging the engineers, all three of them, to re-compute our fuel and tell me when it was time to land. They kept saying "Not yet Triple, keep showing this thing off" which was not a bad thing to be doing. However, all this time the thought that the landing, the muscling of this 600,000 pound beast, was getting closer and closer to my reality. I was pumped up! We got back to the SLF and were still 10,000 pounds too heavy to land so I said I was going to do a low approach over the SLF going the opposite direction of landing traffic that day. So at 300 feet, we flew down the runway, rocking our wings like a whale rolling on its side to say "hello" to the people looking on! One turn out of traffic and back to the runway to land...still 3,000 pounds over gross weight limit. But the engineers agreed that if the landing were smooth, there would be no problem. "Oh thanks guys, a little extra pressure is just what I needed!" So we landed at 603,000 pounds and very smoothly if I have to say so myself. The landing was so totally controlled and on speed, that it was fun. There were a few surprises that I dealt with, like the 747 falls like a rock with the orbiter on it if you pull the throttles off at the "normal" point in a
landing and secondly, if you thought you could hold the nose off the ground after the mains touch down, think again...IT IS COMING DOWN!!!
So I "flew it down" to the ground and saved what I have seen in videos of a nose slap after landing. Bob's video supports this!
Then I turned on my phone after coming to a full stop only to find 50 bazillion emails and phone messages from all of you who were so super to be watching and cheering us on! What a treat, I can't thank y'all enough. For those who watched, you wondered why we sat there so long.
Well, the shuttle had very hazardous chemicals on board and we had to be "sniffed" to determine if any had leaked or were leaking. They checked for Monomethylhydrazine (N2H4 for Charlie Hudson) and nitrogen tetroxide (N2O4). Even though we were "clean", it took way too long for them to tow us in to the mate-demate area. Sorry for those who stuck it out and even waited until we exited the jet.
I am sure I will wake up in the middle of the night here soon, screaming and standing straight up dripping wet with sweat from the realization of what had happened. It was a thrill of a lifetime. Again I want to thank everyone for your interest and support. It felt good to bring Atlantis home in one piece after she had worked so hard getting to the Hubble Space Telescope and back.
Triple Nickel
NASA Pilot
This NASA pilot was new to the Boeing 747/Shuttle Orbiter combo. (Sandra and I witnessed the fly by and landing at KSC. The weather was fantastic. As a side note...they must fly the 747 with the Orbiyer on top below 15,000 feet to avoid causing damage to the Shuttle Orbiter which is essentially powered down during the ferry flight. )
From: Triple Nickel
Sent: Thursday, June 04, 2009 9:34 PM
Subject: (JSCAS ) Shuttle Carry
Well, it's been 48 hours since I landed the 747 with the shuttle Atlantis on top and I am still buzzing from the experience. I have to say that my whole mind, body and soul went into the professional mode just before engine start in Mississippi, and stayed there, where it all needed to be, until well after the flight...in fact, I am not sure if it is all back to normal as I type this email. The experience was surreal.
Seeing that "thing" on top of an already overly huge aircraft boggles my mind. The whole mission from takeoff to engine shutdown was unlike anything I had ever done. It was like a dream...someone else's dream.
We took off from Columbus AFB on their 12,000 foot runway, of which I used 11,999 1/2 feet to get the wheels off the ground. We were at 3,500 feet left to go of the runway, throttles full power, nose wheels still hugging the ground, copilot calling out decision speeds, the weight of Atlantis now screaming through my fingers clinched tightly on the controls, tires heating up to their near maximum temperature from the speed and the weight, and not yet at rotation speed, the speed at which I would be pulling on the controls to get the nose to rise. I just could not wait, and I mean I COULD NOT WAIT, and started pulling early. If I had waited until rotation speed, we would not have rotated enough to get airborne by the end of the runway. So I pulled on the controls early and started our rotation to the takeoff attitude. The wheels finally lifted off as we passed over the stripe marking the end of the runway and my next hurdle (physically) was a line of trees 1,000 feet off the departure end of Runway 16. All I knew was we were flying and so I directed the gear to be retracted and the flaps to be moved from Flaps 20 to Flaps 10 as I pulled even harder on the controls. I must say, those trees were beginning to look a lot like those brushes in the drive through car washes so I pulled even harder yet! I think I saw a bird just fold its wings and fall out of a tree as if to say "Oh just take me". Okay, we cleared the trees, duh, but it was way too close for my laundry. As we started to actually climb, at only 100 feet per minute, I smelled something that reminded me of touring the Heineken Brewery in Europe...I said "is that a skunk I smell?" and the veterans of shuttle carrying looked at me and smiled and said "Tires"!
I said "TIRES??? OURS???" They smiled and shook their heads as if to call their Captain an amateur...okay, at that point I was. The tires were so hot you could smell them in the cockpit. My mind could not get over, from this point on, that this was something I had never experienced.
Where's your mom when you REALLY need her?
The flight down to Florida was an eternity. We cruised at 250 knots indicated, giving us about 315 knots of ground speed at 15,000'. The miles didn't click by like I am use to them clicking by in a fighter jet at MACH .94. We were burning fuel at a rate of 40,000 pounds per hour or 130 pounds per mile, or one gallon every length of the fuselage. The vibration in the cockpit was mild, compared to down below and to the rear of the fuselage where it reminded me of that football game I had as a child where you turned it on and the players vibrated around the board. I felt like if I had plastic clips on my boots I could have vibrated to any spot in the fuselage I wanted to go without moving my legs...and the noise was deafening. The 747 flies with its nose 5 degrees up in the air to stay level, and when you bank, it feels like the shuttle is trying to say "hey, let's roll completely over on our back"..not a good thing I kept telling myself. SO I limited my bank angle to 15 degrees and even though a 180 degree course change took a full zip code to complete, it was the safe way to turn this monster.
Airliners and even a flight of two F-16s deviated from their flight plans to catch a glimpse of us along the way. We dodged what was in reality very few clouds and storms, despite what everyone thought, and arrived in Florida with 51,000 pounds of fuel too much to land with. We can't land heavier than 600,000 pounds total weight and so we had to do something with that fuel. I had an idea...let's fly low and slow and show this beast off to all the taxpayers in Florida lucky enough to be outside on that Tuesday afternoon. So at Ormond Beach we let down to 1,000 feet above the ground/water and flew just east of the beach out over the water. Then, once we reached the NASA airspace of the Kennedy Space Center, we cut over to the Banana/Indian Rivers and flew down the middle of them to show the people of Titusville, Port St.Johns and Melbourne just what a 747 with a shuttle on it looked like. We stayed at 1,000 feet and since we were dragging our flaps at "Flaps 5", our speed was down to around 190 to 210 knots. We could see traffic stopping in the middle of roads to take a look. We heard later that a Little League Baseball game stop to look and everyone cheered as we became their 7th inning stretch. Oh say can you see...
After reaching Vero Beach, we turned north to follow the coast line back up to the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF). There was not one person laying on the beach...they were all standing and waving! "What a sight" I thought...and figured they were thinking the same thing. All this time I was bugging the engineers, all three of them, to re-compute our fuel and tell me when it was time to land. They kept saying "Not yet Triple, keep showing this thing off" which was not a bad thing to be doing. However, all this time the thought that the landing, the muscling of this 600,000 pound beast, was getting closer and closer to my reality. I was pumped up! We got back to the SLF and were still 10,000 pounds too heavy to land so I said I was going to do a low approach over the SLF going the opposite direction of landing traffic that day. So at 300 feet, we flew down the runway, rocking our wings like a whale rolling on its side to say "hello" to the people looking on! One turn out of traffic and back to the runway to land...still 3,000 pounds over gross weight limit. But the engineers agreed that if the landing were smooth, there would be no problem. "Oh thanks guys, a little extra pressure is just what I needed!" So we landed at 603,000 pounds and very smoothly if I have to say so myself. The landing was so totally controlled and on speed, that it was fun. There were a few surprises that I dealt with, like the 747 falls like a rock with the orbiter on it if you pull the throttles off at the "normal" point in a
landing and secondly, if you thought you could hold the nose off the ground after the mains touch down, think again...IT IS COMING DOWN!!!
So I "flew it down" to the ground and saved what I have seen in videos of a nose slap after landing. Bob's video supports this!
Then I turned on my phone after coming to a full stop only to find 50 bazillion emails and phone messages from all of you who were so super to be watching and cheering us on! What a treat, I can't thank y'all enough. For those who watched, you wondered why we sat there so long.
Well, the shuttle had very hazardous chemicals on board and we had to be "sniffed" to determine if any had leaked or were leaking. They checked for Monomethylhydrazine (N2H4 for Charlie Hudson) and nitrogen tetroxide (N2O4). Even though we were "clean", it took way too long for them to tow us in to the mate-demate area. Sorry for those who stuck it out and even waited until we exited the jet.
I am sure I will wake up in the middle of the night here soon, screaming and standing straight up dripping wet with sweat from the realization of what had happened. It was a thrill of a lifetime. Again I want to thank everyone for your interest and support. It felt good to bring Atlantis home in one piece after she had worked so hard getting to the Hubble Space Telescope and back.
Triple Nickel
NASA Pilot
Thank You very much shuttle_guy. It's wonderful to see that you are making regular appearances here on SDC again. I hope that life is treating you very well.
Brilliant piece of writing, thank you very much for bringing it here. :mrgreen:
Mind you the weight of a shuttle orbiter is still no match for the lifting power of a 747.
Nice YouTube video of Atlantis being flown on 747. Proving that not everything on YouTube is crap. :mrgreen:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lb9BvNyE7D0[/youtube]
Andrew Brown.
Brilliant piece of writing, thank you very much for bringing it here. :mrgreen:
Mind you the weight of a shuttle orbiter is still no match for the lifting power of a 747.
Nice YouTube video of Atlantis being flown on 747. Proving that not everything on YouTube is crap. :mrgreen:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lb9BvNyE7D0[/youtube]
Andrew Brown.
No news from NASA, but Sky and Tel has posted this:
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/52369857.html
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/52369857.html
Servicing Mission Observatory Verification (SMOV) Update08.18.09 Hubble is getting closer to completing the calibrations for most of its instruments, and each day it draws nearer to becoming a fully functioning observatory again. In fact, in the upcoming weeks, Hubble will concentrate on making high-priority science observations and then finish the remaining instrument calibrations by early fall.
The Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) still has a few checkouts to complete, but it is now taking science images on a regular basis.
The Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) is also nearing the end of its calibration activities, which should be mostly finished by next week. Meanwhile, STIS is completing its work in support of Hubble’s Early Release Observations (EROs), which will be shared with the public in September.
The Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) is in the final phases of its calibrations for both its near-ultraviolet and far-ultraviolet channels. The channels, which study different wavelengths of ultraviolet light, must be calibrated separately. For example, engineers and scientists are continuing to test the focus for the far-ultraviolet channel, while the near-ultraviolet channel’s focus appears to be good.
The cooling system for the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) has cooled the instrument down to operational levels. Engineers plan to turn on its detectors later this week. After they determine that the temperature is stable and cold enough for science observations, engineers and scientists will begin the several-week calibration process for NICMOS.
The Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) still has a few checkouts to complete, but it is now taking science images on a regular basis.
The Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) is also nearing the end of its calibration activities, which should be mostly finished by next week. Meanwhile, STIS is completing its work in support of Hubble’s Early Release Observations (EROs), which will be shared with the public in September.
The Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) is in the final phases of its calibrations for both its near-ultraviolet and far-ultraviolet channels. The channels, which study different wavelengths of ultraviolet light, must be calibrated separately. For example, engineers and scientists are continuing to test the focus for the far-ultraviolet channel, while the near-ultraviolet channel’s focus appears to be good.
The cooling system for the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) has cooled the instrument down to operational levels. Engineers plan to turn on its detectors later this week. After they determine that the temperature is stable and cold enough for science observations, engineers and scientists will begin the several-week calibration process for NICMOS.
NASA TV will cover a Hubble Early Release Observations News Conference on Wed Sept 9th at 10 AM EDT.
Edit: More details:
Charlie Bolden, NASA administrator and pilot of space shuttle Discovery on the STS-31 mission that launched Hubble in 1990, will join U.S. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, D-Md., in the unveiling of the Hubble images during the 11 a.m. briefing. A panel of scientists then will discuss Hubble's new and refurbished instruments and the images they produced.
The participants are:
-- Ed Weiler, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters
-- Bob O'Connell, chair of the science oversight committee for the Wide Field Camera 3 at the University of Virginia
-- James Green, the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph principal investigator at the University of Colorado
-- David Leckrone, senior project scientist for Hubble at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
-- Heidi Hammel, senior research scientist at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.
The briefings will be held in the James E. Webb Memorial Auditorium, 300 E St. S.W., Washington. Reporters also may ask questions from participating NASA locations by phone. To reserve a phone line, journalists should send an e-mail to J.D. Harrington at j.d.harrington@nasa.gov with their name, media affiliation and telephone number.
Edit: More details:
Charlie Bolden, NASA administrator and pilot of space shuttle Discovery on the STS-31 mission that launched Hubble in 1990, will join U.S. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, D-Md., in the unveiling of the Hubble images during the 11 a.m. briefing. A panel of scientists then will discuss Hubble's new and refurbished instruments and the images they produced.
The participants are:
-- Ed Weiler, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters
-- Bob O'Connell, chair of the science oversight committee for the Wide Field Camera 3 at the University of Virginia
-- James Green, the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph principal investigator at the University of Colorado
-- David Leckrone, senior project scientist for Hubble at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
-- Heidi Hammel, senior research scientist at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.
The briefings will be held in the James E. Webb Memorial Auditorium, 300 E St. S.W., Washington. Reporters also may ask questions from participating NASA locations by phone. To reserve a phone line, journalists should send an e-mail to J.D. Harrington at j.d.harrington@nasa.gov with their name, media affiliation and telephone number.
This week's new NOVA episode on PBS is about the repair mission. In my market the first airing is 8 PM Tuesday on WNET in NYC.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/hubble/about.html
"The best-known scientific instrument in history was dying. After nearly 20 years in space and hundreds of thousands of spectacular images, the Hubble Space Telescope's gyroscopes and sensors were failing, its batteries running down, and some of its instruments were already dead. The only hope to save Hubble was a mission so dangerous that in 2004 NASA cancelled it because it was considered too risky.
Scientists and the general public alike stubbornly refused to abandon the telescope, and a new NASA administrator revived the mission. This program takes viewers behind the scenes on a riveting journey with the team of astronauts and engineers charged with saving the famous "orbiting observatory" against all odds."
"The best-known scientific instrument in history was dying. After nearly 20 years in space and hundreds of thousands of spectacular images, the Hubble Space Telescope's gyroscopes and sensors were failing, its batteries running down, and some of its instruments were already dead. The only hope to save Hubble was a mission so dangerous that in 2004 NASA cancelled it because it was considered too risky.
Scientists and the general public alike stubbornly refused to abandon the telescope, and a new NASA administrator revived the mission. This program takes viewers behind the scenes on a riveting journey with the team of astronauts and engineers charged with saving the famous "orbiting observatory" against all odds."
Looks like the new camera on HST is busy. They're calling this "the most detailed view of star birth in the graceful, curving arms of the nearby spiral galaxy M83". You can see larger pictures at the link below.
LINK TO NEWS RELEASE
LINK TO NEWS RELEASE
Discovery Channel (US) is currently running a brand new show about the STS-125 repair mission. It's GREAT!! (Except for the ol' cheezy whoosing sound as the shuttle goes past in an animation)
It will rerun at 1 AM EST.
It's called Mission Critical: Hubble.
If you can, check it out
It will rerun at 1 AM EST.
It's called Mission Critical: Hubble.
If you can, check it out
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