How Was The Hubble Telescope Repaired

Saving Hubble: How a Space Telescope Repair 10 Years Agone Almost Never Happened (Video)

A major repair to the Hubble Space Telescope 10 years ago this calendar week is still helping united states of america uncover the history of the universe. Nevertheless, every bit described in a new video from NASA, the 2009 launch of space shuttle mission STS-125 to the famed observatory well-nigh never happened.

Space shuttle Atlantis, the video explains, sent ii new instruments in orbit for Hubble, and tools to repair two more than instruments on the telescope. The upgrade allowed Hubble to better peer at the youngest stars and galaxies, and to larn how galaxies formed. On top of the successful repair, NASA got a public relations boost when astronaut Mike Massimino sent the first tweet from infinite.

A view of the Hubble Space Telescope through the window of the shuttle Atlantis, which brought astronauts on a repair mission in 2009. (Image credit: NASA)

Yet six years before, this mission was canceled. NASA reviewed all of its mission plans after the space shuttle Columbia bankrupt up during reentry on Feb. 1, 2003, killing all seven astronauts on board. The agency had planned a final repair mission for Hubble after four successful astronaut visits — but NASA ambassador Sean O'Keefe decided it was too risky to go ahead. NASA officials were considering sending robots to exercise the repairs instead, co-ordinate to a argument from the bureau.

Related: The Best Hubble Space Telescope Images of All Time!

Robots or humans?

However, Hubble — which launched in 1990 — needed help rapidly to continue observations. Three of its aging half-dozen gyroscopes (which are used to bespeak the telescope precisely at space targets) didn't function any more. A spectrograph failed completely in 2004. At one point, Hubble was unable to do whatever science for a month, according to the statement.

NASA worked diligently on plans to send robots to Hubble in an endeavour led by Frank Cepollina, who at the time was acquaintance director for NASA's Satellite Servicing Capabilities Project. Amid public protestation and scientific business concern, withal, NASA inverse its mind on Oct. 31, 2006, when new administrator Michael Griffin (afterward reviewing the situation carefully with senior agency officials) said a space shuttle mission could exist conducted. NASA took several extra prophylactic precautions to reduce the risk to the STS-125 crew, including having a backup space shuttle and crew set to launch if a problem befell the orbiting astronauts.

Cepollina's team continued to work on repair procedures, this time for astronauts. During their piece of work, a 2d instrument — the Advanced Camera for Surveys — too failed. By missions by and large instructed astronauts to supercede failed equipment, simply technology had advanced a lot since the 1990s. The group decided that tools had progressed far plenty in development so that astronauts could do tricky repairs on this expensive musical instrument (worth hundreds of millions of dollars), rather than replacing it.

Launch was set for October 2008 until yet some other Hubble failure messed upwards those plans. The telescope'southward Science Instrument Control and Data Handling unit experienced an anomaly. This was a serious issue, because this unit is responsible for formatting scientific data that Hubble collects, and as well for managing the scientific discipline instruments.

NASA delayed the launch and constitute a spare unit inside a simulator at the Goddard Infinite Flight Center. Testing it for flight took six months. In one case engineers knew the unit was safe to go to space, STS-125 had a new launch date. The astronauts launched safely on the space shuttle Atlantis on May 11, 2009.

Screw stripping

The repair task wasn't easy. In a recent quote in the NASA statement, Massimino remembered a moment when he was taking out handrail screws on top of the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) musical instrument panel. STIS needed a new ability supply, and Massimino had it ready. However, while three screws came out with no bug, the fourth stripped underneath his drill.

"I saw what I had done and my middle but sank," Massimino said. "I apace did the deduction ... if that screw doesn't come off, the handrail doesn't come off, and then 111 screws don't come off the panel. That ways the ability supply doesn't come out; a new 1 doesn't go back in, and STIS doesn't come back to life. We'll never discover out if at that place'south life in the universe, and anybody'due south going to blame me."

NASA ground command and the orbiting astronauts troubleshooted the sticky screw for 4 hours, including using dissimilar drill bits to loosen it. When nothing worked, NASA instructed Massimino to rip the handle off — while beingness careful non to let any of the jagged edges puncture his suit. Massimino advisedly pulled at the handle, and to everyone'south relief, information technology came off with no further issue.

The historic repair ways that the telescope is still going stiff today, after an incredible 29 years in infinite. (In October 2022, Hubble experienced a major gyroscope issue, but information technology resumed operations; the telescope besides had camera glitches in 2022.)Its many achievements include helping to show that the universe's expansion is accelerating; doing reconnaissance shots for the New Horizons mission before the spacecraft'southward Jan. 1, 2022, flyby of the distant object MU69, nicknamed Ultima Thule; and examining areas with dark matter — a mysterious substance that makes upwardly almost of the universe'south mass, but whose composition isn't pinned down nevertheless.

"We yet have full redundancy in all of the spacecraft'south critical systems," Larry Dunham, Hubble'due south chief systems engineer at NASA's Goddard, said in the argument. "It'due south just unbelievable that we're still going today."

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Elizabeth Howell, Ph.D., is a contributing writer for Space.com since 2022. Equally a proud Trekkie and Canadian, she tackles topics similar spaceflight, multifariousness, scientific discipline fiction, astronomy and gaming to help others explore the universe. Elizabeth's on-site reporting includes two human being spaceflight launches from Kazakhstan, and embedded reporting from a simulated Mars mission in Utah. She holds a Ph.D. and M.Sc. in Space Studies from the University of N Dakota, and a Bachelor of Journalism from Canada'south Carleton University. Her latest book, NASA Leadership Moments, is co-written with astronaut Dave Williams. Elizabeth commencement got interested in infinite after watching the film Apollo 13 in 1996, and withal wants to be an astronaut someday.