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05/16/09: STS-125: Hubble will now be able to see farther into the Universe.
Mission: STS-125 (HST-SM4)
Orbiter: Atlantis (OV-104); 5th & final Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission.
Mission Number: 126th Shuttle flight
Atlantis flight: 30th
Launch Date: May 11, 2009, 14:01 EDT
Launch Window: 60 min
Launch Pad: 39A mapweather Mission Duration: 12 days, 21 hours, 38 mins, 19 seconds from launch to wheels stop
Distance traveled: >5.3 million miles
Orbital Altitude: 320 nm (570 km)
Orbital Inclination: 28.5 degrees
Landing: 08:39 PDT, May 24, Edwards Air force Base (53rd Shuttle landing at Edwards)
Main gear touchdown: 08:39:05 PDT
Nose gear touchdown: 08:39:15 PDT
Wheels stop: 08:40:15 PDT
Primary Landing Site: Kennedy Space Center mapweather Alternative Landing Sites: Edwards Air Force Base weather & White Sands, NM.
Inclination/Altitude: 28.5 degrees/308 nautical miles (570 km)
Primary Payload: Cosmic Origins Spectrograph, Wide Field Camera 3, Fine Guidance Sensor
EVA's: Five:
EVA-1 (Grunsfeld/Feustel): Installation of the Wide Field Camera 3.
EVA-2 (Massimino/Good): Installation of three rate sensing units (six gyros) and one battery module (three batteries)
EVA-3 (Grunsfeld/Feustel): Installation of the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph and the second battery module. Removal of four faulty electronics cards from the Advanced Camera for Surveys and replacement with new electronics box and cable.
EVA-4 (Massimino/Good): Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph repair and installation of a cooling system
EVA-5 (Grunsfeld/Feustel): Installation of Fine Guidance Sensor No. 3 and associated equipment, plus installation of three New Outer Blanket Layer (NOBL)s.
Crew: Mission Commander: Scott D. Altman; Pilot: Gregory C. Johnson; Mission Specialists: John
M. Grunsfeld, Michael J. Massimino, Andrew J. Feustel, Michael T. Good, K. Megan McArthur Crew portrait Contingency Shuttle Crew Support Mission: STS-400 (Rescue STS-125) - Endeavour (OV-105) will be ready on Pad 39B if needed; STS-125's orbit excludes use of ISS in emergency. STS-400 crew: Dominic Gorie, Commander; Gregory H. Johnson, Pilot; Robert L. Behnken, Mission Specialist 1; Michael Foreman, Mission Specialist 2.
4 p.m. CDT Saturday, May 16, 2009 Mission Control Center, Houston, Texas
STS-125 Mission Control Center Status Report #11.
Mission Specialists John Grunsfeld and Andrew Feustel completed the third spacewalk of Atlantis' mission to the Hubble Space Telescope in 6 hours, 36 minutes, stepping smoothly through the difficult tasks of repairing a delicate camera and installing its most sensitive spectrograph ever.
Grunsfeld and Feustel began the spacewalk at 8:35 a.m., removing the telescope's 16-year-old 'contact lens,' the Corrective Optics Space Telescope Axial Replacement (COSTAR), and safely tucked it into the shuttle's payload bay. The two then installed the new Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS), which will allow Hubble to peer farther into the universe than ever before in the near and far ultraviolet ranges.
Then, Grunsfeld and Feustel used specially designed tools to carry out a job never intended to be done on a spacewalk, repairing the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). The camera, known for some of the most famous imagery captured by Hubble, had stopped working in early 2007 when its backup power supply short circuited. The two removed 32 screws from an access panel to efficiently replace the camera's four circuit boards and install a new power supply.
In a test conducted from the Space Telescope Operations Control Center at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., engineers powered up the 851-pound COS to make sure its power and data connection were operating. While the astronauts sleep, the team will conduct additional functional tests on each component to determine if the astronauts will need to perform additional work. The COS will be calibrated over the next several weeks.
The spacewalk was the 80th in space shuttle history. Grunsfeld now ranks fourth among all spacewalkers, with 51 hours, 28 minutes to his credit over seven excursions.
Tomorrow, astronauts Michael Good and Mike Massimino will repair the Space Telescope Imaging and Spectrograph (STIS) and install the New Outer Blanket Layer (NOBL).
The crew's sleep period will begin at 8:31 p.m. and crew wake will be at 4:31 a.m. tomorrow. The next status report will be issued tomorrow morning or earlier, if events warrant.
