HST repair mission

[tornado33]

Having a late evening here, I started watching the 3rd spacewalk and cant stop watching :) They just pulled out the COSTAR module and are stowing it in the payload bay.

They just opened a box in the payload bay revealing a brand new instrument the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph ready to be fitted to Hubble. The astronaut commented "It made it into space intact" I should think so. Imagine if they opened the box and bits floated out lol! I hope they packed all the parts!

Its all happening on here (http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html)
They are lifting Cosmic Origins Spectrograph out of its box now....... Dont bump it folks!

[turbo_pascale]

I wish you hadn't posted that link.
I was up until 5am watching, enthralled, until the closed the covers on the scope.
Having a 3 year old jumping on your skull at 7:30am is not a fun experience when you're running off that much sleep!

Turbo

[mswhin63]

Haha, same here I was up till late this morning and my 13 yo woke me up with coffee.

I control his Computer time :lol:

[snowyskiesau]

Found this image of Atlantis and Hubble (http://www.flickr.com/photos/nasahqphoto/3531350583/in/set-72157617823159021/) transiting the sun.

Hope it's close enough to the thread topic.

[erick]

Best writeup I have found on servicing progress:- :2thumbs:

http://amazing-space.stsci.edu/sm4/update.php.p=Servicing+Mission+4%40 %2Csm4%2C

http://amazing-space.stsci.edu/sm4/update_archive/index.php.p=Servicing+Mission+4%40% 2Csm4%2C%3ESM4+Update%40%2Csm4%2Cup date.php

This is going to be a brilliant result! :jump:

[turbo_pascale]

Was up until 5am again this morning..... not good for my eyeballs.

They guy who stripped the bolt head while trying to remove a handle was (in my opinion) going too fast. You could hear the concern in Houston's messages telling him to hold on, all the time he was just ploughing on. I didn't see the end result of the EVA (they seemed to get back on track after a bit of a brute force effort, but I couldn't keep my eyes open anymore), but I suspect they will be having words with him when he comes back down!

I was very impressed with the mechanism they had to remove all 111 tiny screws. I am really not going to watch again tonight. I need to have more than 2 hours sleep a night.

Turbo

[tornado33]

Yep its great stuff to watch. Another walk is in progress now, just getting all their gear together before working on Hubble bettery replacement.
Scott

[jjjnettie]

Thanks for the reminder.
Watching them installing the new battery now.
What a view! How could you concentrate on what you're doing?

[erick]

Lost video for a while now. All going smoothly. I think I can relax and go to bed!

[MrB]

One of the few times I wish I had broadband.
I can only get audio.. and broken audio at that.

[jjjnettie]

Fancy doing all this with those gloves on, the tethers seem to get in the way all the time too.

[Octane]

I've been watching tonight's mission.

Amazing. Just absolutely amazing!

Regards,
Humayun

[erick]

NASA report I read suggests they easily achieved everything that was planned. Even gave it nice new clean "blankets"!

"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."

John Grunsfield had a speech prepared it seems:-

"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." "


I think it is fascinating how we are right with the Mission on NASA TV (on some delay I'm sure to allow blackout of serious mishaps?). Viewing the work from the EVA'rs helmet cameras. Some of the views last night were stunning. Also from the cameras in the payload bay and on the robotic arm. The views of the Earth sweeping by below while they worked - marvellous!

[erick]

One minutes to release!!!!!

[erick]

OMG! They let it go and it fell straight to earth!



:D


Nope, all is fine!