STS-109  

Video 1: Shots of the Galaxy, Universe, Hubble Space Telescope
 
"Every few years, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope gets a visit from its Earthly caretakers. That next visit is about to happen with the launch of Mission STS-109 aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia. A team of seven astronauts has trained extensively for a year and is now ready to install a full manifest of new equipment on the orbiting telescope during five spacewalks. This includes replacing the current camera on Hubble with the Advanced Camera for Surveys.
 
The new Advanced Camera for Surveys will expand Hubble's capabilities to see up to twenty times farther into the universe than has been possible in the past. This powerful new camera has a field of view twice the size of Hubble's current surveyor and will reveal areas of our universe that have never before been seen.
 
Hubble's current Solar Arrays will be replaced with the updated Solar Array 3 that are one-third smaller in size yet more efficient and will help reduce the effects of atmospheric drag on the telescope.
 
From the beginning, Hubble was designed to be modular and astronaut-friendly. This design has allowed NASA to equip the orbiting telescope with new, state-of-the-art scientific instruments that incorporate the latest technology and give the telescope exciting new capabilities with each servicing mission.
 
Beginning with the launch of Hubble from Space Shuttle Discovery on Mission STS-31 in April 1990, and continuing with subsequent servicing missions in December 1993, February 1997 and December 1999, our view of the universe continues to be enhanced and expanded. And the Hubble Space Telescope story continues."
   

Slide 2: Columbia begins trek to Pad 39A from VAB
 
Space Shuttle Columbia, atop the mobile launch platform, began the trek from the Vehicle Assembly Building on the crawler transporter to Launch Pad 39A on January 28.
 

Slide 6: Reaction Wheel being unpacked in the VPF
 
One of the primary mission tasks is to replace one of the telescope's four Reaction Wheels with a new reaction wheel. In this slide, the new reaction wheel is unpacked in the Vertical Processing Facility after its arrival on Jan. 29.
The Reaction Wheels are Hubble's primary steering mechanisms and are used to stabilize and precisely point the telescope. These metal discs are 2.5 feet in diameter, weigh 160 pounds each, and provide steering power from zero to 3,000 rpm in both forward and reverse directions.
 

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Slide 18: Formal Picture Pilot Duane G. Carey

Video 3: Carey

"There are quite a few upgrades now. There's been a tremendous amount of work that's been done that you can't see in Columbia. The folks out in Palmdale - when she was over there for her major depot turnaround - did a tremendous amount of rewiring and a lot of safety enhancements to the vehicle. But, the big one for Scott and I is in the cockpit. And, that's the, that's the MEDS upgrade to all the flight instruments. And what it really means is that we now have an up-to-date flight instrument display suite in the Orbiter. Columbia's the second Orbiter to get this particular upgrade, and folks in the aviation community refer to this type of upgrade as a "glass cockpit"; and that's what we have now in the Orbiter. And, the nice thing about the glass cockpit is that, as we get smarter about what types of displays we want to see to help us have situational awareness in the Orbiter, we can actually quite easily upgrade our displays. Right now, the displays are just, they just kind of emulate whatever our old displays had in the Orbiter, except we have them all in glass in CRTs. But, in the future (and we're working on this right now), we have a lot of flexibility in what we can do with those displays. So, it's an exciting upgrade, you know, to folks like myself who are sitting up on the flight deck."
 

Slide 21: Informal Pic Grunsfeld

Dr. Grunsfeld performed two spacewalks during Mission STS-103 to successfully install new instruments and system upgrades on the Hubble Space Telescope. He is shown here in pre-flight training for Mission STS-109.
Dr. Grunsfeld recently discussed the importance of Hubble and telescopes like it.
 

Slide 22: Formal Picture Mission Specialist Nancy Currie

Nancy Currie, Ph.D. will serve as mission specialist 2. A veteran of three space flights, she has logged more than 737 hours in space. She served as flight engineer on Mission STS-57 in 1993, STS-70 in 1995 and STS-88 in 1998, the first International Space Station assembly mission.

Video 5: Currie
 
"As the arm operator on this flight, I can't think of another mission that will be a better mission to be on as the arm operator because, essentially, every single day except launch and landing, we're using the arm on this flight. And we'll be using the arm to grapple the Hubble. We'll be using the arm on all five of the EVAs to maneuver the crew members around. The arm makes a tremendous work platform. They can put a tool stanchion behind them on the arm to hang all their tools that they'll need off of it. And then, finally, when we go to release Hubble, it will be the arm that maneuvers it in position, releases it, and then we'll back away slowly with the shuttle."

Video 6: Linnehan
 
"Well, my prime responsibility for Hubble will be EV-2, which is extravehicular-2 with John. I'm part of that first EVA team that'll go out, as I said, on days 1, 3, and 5 and do the solar array, the PCU, and the NICMOS, the NCC. I have other, everybody has other, you know, additional duties. On day 4 when Mike and Jim are out, I'll be the prime IV; I'll be the one that leads them in terms of talking with them and basically be the coach inside. We call it "IV," but it's basically a guy who's the coach, or lady who's the coach and talks to these people, and runs them through the whole game plan while they're outside. And, that's what I'll do. John will be that on day 2, and, Jim and Mike will alternate as they come in when we're out there for our EVAs. So, my prime duties, as I look at it, is just learning the EVAs as best as I can, the equipment, and what Hubble is about. And then I have internal duties of the shuttle. I help with photo, TV. I'll be the entry MS, so I'll sit up on the flight deck in entry and be part of the flight crew as they come in and do the crosschecks with the MS-2 and make sure systems are looking good so we land the way we should. And we train for all this. It always seems like there's a million things we need to do and there's never enough time to study for them. But for me in this mission, the EVAs are the thing. I mean, if I make a mistake with the Pentax inside or I forget to put a roll of tape in the VCR or something like that, that's bad. But, I'll recover from that. I won't, but the EVAs are what I'm spending all my time on. And, as I see, the most important thing in the mission because that's why we're going up there: to fix Hubble. And if we don't, then you know, we can't say we were successful."

Video 8: Massimino
"The plan is, we're going to finish up our solar array task, which means we'll take the old solar arrays off on our day, on the second EVA day, and we'll put the new one. And after that's done, the plan is for me to go to the SSM bay, to the bay where this reaction wheel is. Jim will go down to a carrier in the payload bay. And, I will undo the doors to open up this door to get access to the reaction wheel. Jim will open up the carrier and get the replacement reaction wheel that we're going to put in. The new one. I will then unhook a few of the bolts (there's three bolts that keep it in), and I'm also going to unhook two connectors and two heater connectors that allow the reaction wheel to work and, and provide pointing for the Hubble. So, we'll unhook that stuff. And then I'll be tethered to it of course. So, you know, we don't happen to lose it. And we don't plan to do that. We want, the old one, we want to bring back. So, I'll grab that and take it out. And then, Nancy will fly me; I'll be on the arm. So, Nancy will fly me on the arm down through where Jim is, down in the payload bay; and we'll do an exchange. Jim will give me the new one; I'll give him the old one. Then Nancy will take me back up to that same bay where that we were at, that same equipment bay. And I'll carefully put the new reaction wheel in, tie down its three bolts, and then I'll hook up its connectors and its heaters and take a couple of close-out photos and close the door, and button up the door, and it'll be done. And, we're figuring all that should take somewhere about an hour to do that whole scenario."