Hubble

The seven astronauts picked to fly the final mission to the Hubble Space Telescope next year got a rousing welcome yesterday as they made the traditional courtesy call on the folks in Baltimore whose jobs may hang on how well the crew does its work. The crew of Servicing Mission 4 arrived to applause and cheers from a crowd that crammed the auditorium at the Space Telescope Science Institute. They introduced themselves, showed some training films they brought along from Houston. They also brought along their comedy act. OK, so it was astronaut humor.

1989: British soccer crush kills 941990: Hubble space telescope launched into orbit1990: U.S. population reaches 250 millionPub Date: 12/08/99

NASA's plans to replace failing gyroscopes aboard the Hubble Space Telescope this year are threatened by yet another delay in the launch of the space shuttle Discovery.The space agency said yesterday that Discovery's scheduled Dec. 2 launch would be postponed to give ground crews time to replace an engine and inspect the spacecraft for faulty heat-resistant tiles.No new launch date has been set.Without the repairs to Hubble, one of its three remaining gyroscopes could quit working, making it impossible for controllers to reliably aim the telescope.

You don't have to buy a telescope to tour the universe. You don't even have to stand for hours in your freezing back yard to see cool stuff in the night sky.There is a galaxy of astronomy Web sites on the Internet. Some offer the latest, most beautiful images from the Hubble Space Telescope, and from spacecraft circling Jupiter and Mars.Others make it easy to predict when you can step out on your sidewalk for a few minutes to watch the space shuttle, the International Space Station (ISS) or Russia's Mir space station cruise over your head.

The mirrors on NASA's $108 million FUSE telescope won't stay put, and that is delaying astronomers' plans to study chemical clues to the origin, evolution and fate of the universe.Two of the four mirrors aboard the Hopkins-built Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer satellite keep drifting out of alignment, apparently in response to temperature changes, mission leaders say.It's only a tiny movement; the starlight reflected by the mirror drifts by barely the width of a human hair.But it is forcing ground controllers to stop and re-align the mirrors for each new observation, and it has postponed work on a final focusing of the telescope.

WASHINGTON -- The Hubble Space Telescope is in trouble, NASA reported yesterday.Three of its six gyroscopes have failed and the fourth could give out shortly, interrupting the flow of priceless astronomical data gathered by the Hubble from objects in space as near as the planets and as far as remote corners of the universe.Daniel S. Goldin, administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, said yesterday that he will decide by the weekend whether to launch a space shuttle on an "emergency mission" to rescue the telescope this fall.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- The countdown clock is ticking. The weather looks good. And after four months of repairs, shuttle Discovery appears ready at last to blast off tonight on a crucial 10-day flight to service the Hubble Space Telescope.It's the last human spaceflight of the 1900s. It's also the first shuttle launch from Kennedy Space Center since July.Then, a short circuit moments after liftoff knocked out a pair of computers used to control two of Columbia's three main engines. Backup computers allowed Columbia to safely complete a tense ride to orbit.

With the failures of two costly Mars spacecraft still painfully fresh, NASA is gearing up to tackle two more chancy missions. And this time the glare of public scrutiny will shift from NASA's Mars teams in California to Maryland.At the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, scientists are waiting out more delays in a space shuttle mission to replace failed gyroscopes that have idled the Hubble orbiting observatory. "I think we're aware we need to do well. NASA needs a winner," said the institute's director, Steven V. W. Beckwith.

A vital gyroscope on board the Hubble Space Telescope has sputtered and quit, forcing the high-flying observatory to shut its eye on the heavens until a crew of astronauts can get there to make repairs.The shuttle Discovery and its crew of seven are scheduled for blastoff Dec. 6 on a much-postponed mission to replace all six of Hubble's gyroscopes and to make other repairs and improvements.On the ground, astronomers will lose an estimated 74 observations each week until the telescope is working again.

A vital gyroscope on board the Hubble Space Telescope has sputtered and quit, forcing the high-flying observatory to shut its eye on the heavens until a crew of astronauts can get there to make repairs.The shuttle Discovery and its crew of seven are scheduled for blastoff Dec. 6 on a much-postponed mission to replace all six of Hubble's gyroscopes and to make other repairs and improvements.On the ground, astronomers will lose an estimated 74 observations each week until the telescope is working again.

One image appears uncannily like a butterfly, its ethereal wings extending into the blackness of space. But looks are deceiving, and the apparently tranquil scene actually depicts a violent nebula of superheated gas charging across the Milky Way Galaxy at 600,000 miles per hour, with a dying star once five times the mass of the sun at its center. In another picture, a cluster of several swirls of light seem to interact in a celestial dance, while a smaller, glowing circle hovers at some distance from the others.

The new science data computer that astronauts installed on the Hubble Space Telescope five weeks ago has malfunctioned. The science instruments that rely on the computer to transfer Hubble's discoveries to the ground have been shut down and placed in "safe" mode, NASA officials said Thursday. The space agency has named an anomaly review board to study the problem. The faulty computer, the Science Instrument Command and Data Handler, is not really new. It was a spare built before the Hubble was launched in 1990.

Hoping to tap into an economic engine that can weather the recession, Gov. Martin O'Malley unveiled a strategy Tuesday for bolstering the space industry's foothold in the state by lobbying for more federal dollars and emphasizing science and mathematics in schools. O'Malley, speaking to more than 500 aerospace industry representatives in Greenbelt, outlined a plan to harness what he characterized as the state's "unsung economic hero." The vision is similar to one the governor has articulated for the biotechnology industry as a way to further move the state from a manufacturing- to a knowledge-based economy.

Five days of work on the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope should end Tuesday morning with the release of what one astronomer said is "in many ways ... a brand new telescope." "At this point, Hubble actually has the largest complement of functioning instruments it has ever had" since its launch in 1990, said Mario Livio, senior scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. "This is going to be an observatory that is just so much more powerful and more promising." The crew of the shuttle Atlantis was to release the telescope just before 9 a.m. Tuesday.

The crowd of scientists watching on the big screen in the auditorium of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore went silent Thursday when it appeared a single stuck bolt might foil NASA's plans to install a powerful new camera on the Hubble Space Telescope. Astronaut Drew Feustel had tried and failed to budge it with his power wrench. If he couldn't muscle it into submission with elbow grease alone, the 15-year-old camera would have to be reconnected. Worse, its replacement - the $150 million Wide Field Camera 3, packing more than ten times the "discovery power" of the old camera - would have to be repacked for the ride home.

The space shuttle Atlantis is racing to catch up with the Hubble Space Telescope after a nearly flawless launch Monday into clear skies. If all goes well, four astronauts will begin a series of spacewalks Thursday to repair and upgrade the 19-year-old observatory for the last time before the shuttle program ends next year. "It was fantastic," said Mario Livio, a senior scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore who was at the Kennedy Space Center for the launch. "There were tears in my eyes when I saw the shuttle go off," he said.

The picture on Adam Riess' computer monitor arrived fresh from the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope. It was the fading light from an exploding star, potentially a key piece of evidence in his yearslong investigation of one of the greatest of all cosmological mysteries - dark energy. But as the Johns Hopkins University astrophysicist waited for the next image to arrive, an e-mail message popped onto his screen. In an instant, he tumbled into what he describes as one of those "uh-oh" moments when everything changes.

Seven astronauts are stranded in orbit after their shuttle is damaged during launch. Unable to repair the ship, they hunker down with dwindling supplies while four more astronauts board a second spacecraft and blast off on a daring rescue mission. NASA executives would like to keep this scenario in the realm of science fiction. But they're preparing for it just the same on the slim chance the shuttle Atlantis is crippled during the May 11 repair mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. A second shuttle - Endeavour - is poised for liftoff from Cape Canaveral if there's a call for help from Atlantis.

NASA officials said Thursday that they will try to launch their mission to repair and upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope a day earlier than planned. The push to launch the shuttle Atlantis on May 11 instead of May 12 is driven by a desire to add a third day to the available launch window. Failure to launch by May 13 would delay the Hubble mission until May 27 because of competing demands on the Florida launch facilities, officials said. "I feel fairly confident we can make a May 11 launch date," said LeRoy Cain, deputy manager of NASA's shuttle program.

At home, you might find Matt Ashmore reaching into his tool chest for the right socket wrench to speed up the restoration of his 1969 Dodge Polara. But at the Goddard Space Flight Center, the 30-year-old aerospace engineer has spent the past several years developing a sleek new power screwdriver for spacewalking NASA astronauts. They'll need it to pop the hoods of two broken-down scientific instruments on the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope. Ashmore heads a team of more than 35 in Goddard's Crew Aids and Tools Development office in Greenbelt.