Powerful Optical Telescope Captures First Binocular Images

Atlantis Readied For Hubble Mission

Mar 7, 2008

By Craig Covault/Aerospace Daily & Defense Report

NASA has started reconfiguring the space shuttle Atlantis to prepare for what may be its final mission - the last planned servicing of the Hubble Space Telescope.

Atlantis is targeted to carry the last planned crew of on-orbit repairmen to the observatory before the end of this year. That will require it to be configured differently from orbiters working on ISS assembly.

A United Space Alliance crew in the Orbiter Processing Facility has started removing the orbiter docking system from in front of the airlock in the forward bulkhead of the payload bay. Later a large tilt table will be installed in the aft payload bay, where the Atlantis crew will mount the orbiting telescope after grappling it with the orbiter's robotic arm.

Other modifications will add protection against debris impact to sensitive areas, since the crew will not be able to take shelter in the International Space Station if there is damage. Atlantis will carry the now-standard Orbiter Boom Sensor System that will make intensive inspections of the delicate thermal protection system. If it finds a serious problem, the crew will have to repair it or await rescue by the crew of the shuttle Endeavour, which will be positioned on the other pad at Kennedy Space Center when Atlantis is launched.

NASA would like to retain Atlantis on operational status after the Hubble mission for greater flexibility in the final two years of shuttle flights, but is still weighing the budget implications of that approach and won't make a final decision for another month, says John Shannon, the newly named shuttle program manager.

[link to www.aviationweek.com]

I'm pretty sure, before anyone asks, that this miraculous wonder-scope will NOT be able to take high-res photos of the Moon.

No doubt Rayleigh will feature in the explanation, somewhere.