Atlantis grabs Hubble Space Telescope
CAPE CANAVERAL -- Atlantis' astronauts grabbed the Hubble Space Telescope on Wednesday, then quickly set their sights on the difficult, dangerous and unprecedented spacewalking repairs they will attempt over the next five days.
Hubble and Atlantis are flying in a 350-mile-high orbit littered with space junk. The shuttle already has an ugly stretch of nicks from Monday's launch, but the damage is considered minor and poses no safety threat. NASA continued to prep another shuttle, though, just in case Atlantis is hit by orbital debris and the crew needs to be rescued.
After seven years of orbital solitude, Hubble looked surprisingly well. Flight controllers gasped when the telescope first came into view.
"It's an unbelievably beautiful sight," reported John Grunsfeld, the telescope's chief repairman. "Amazingly, the exterior of Hubble, an old man of 19 years in space, still looks in fantastic shape."
NASA hopes to get another five to 10 years of dazzling views of the cosmos from Hubble, with all the planned upgrades, which should leave the observatory more powerful than ever.
Shuttle robot arm operator Megan McArthur used the 50-foot boom to seize the school bus-sized telescope as the two spacecraft sailed 350 miles above Australia. Then she lowered the observatory into Atlantis' payload bay, where cameras checked it out.
Going into the mission, Hubble scientists and managers warned that Hubble might look a little ragged because it hasn't had a tuneup since 2002. But initial observations showed nothing major.
"Everybody's very excited up here, I can tell you," said Grunsfeld, who will venture out Thursday with Andrew Feustel. They will replace an old Hubble camera that's the size of a baby grand piano, as well as a science data-handling unit that failed in September and delayed Atlantis' flight by seven months.
This is the fifth time astronauts have called upon Hubble. The previous overhauls went well, but those repairs were straightforward, with spacewalkers pulling equipment in and out. This time, Grunsfeld and his team will venture into the guts of broken instruments.
