CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A rejuvenated Hubble Space Telescope, more powerful than ever, left the space shuttle Tuesday and sailed off for new discoveries.
"It’s showtime for us now,” program scientist Eric Smith said.
Hubble — considered to be at its prime after five days of repairs — was gently dropped overboard by the shuttle Atlantis astronauts, the last humans to see the 19-year-old observatory up close.
It was NASA’s last service call and, despite spacewalking moments ranging from anguish to elation, turned out to be "a 110 percent successful mission,” senior project scientist David Leckrone said.
"Today begins the second Hubble revolution,” an emotional Leckrone said from Houston.
Smith happily ticked off a few of Hubble’s early accomplishments: determining the age of the universe, finding dark matter, studying planets around other stars.
The shuttle and telescope had just crossed the Atlantic when robot arm operator Megan McArthur set Hubble free.
During five consecutive days of spacewalks, Atlantis’ crew labored tirelessly on the observatory. Four men working in teams of two gave the telescope two new high-powered science instruments and a suite of other up-to-date equipment, and fixed two broken instruments, something never before attempted in orbit.
What’s ahead?
The Hubble mission team hopes to resume celestial observations by the end of summer.
At the end of this month, the improved Hubble will take its first pictures, but only to make sure its instruments are working. The image will be a cluster of stars in the constellation Sagittarius that go by the boring name NGC6681. Astronomers have known about this group of stars for nearly 230 years. It is about 29,000 light years away.
Astronomers expect to get five to 10 more years out of the iconic telescope, thanks to the astronauts’ effort. As for Hubble’s future after that, there will be no more visits.
Sometime after 2020, NASA will send a robotic craft to steer it back into the atmosphere and a watery grave. The spacewalkers installed a docking ring for just that purpose.
by the associated press
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