231-NASA – Hubble and STS-125 Grapple

This artist’s concept shows the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope aboard the space shuttle Atlantis. In the background is one of the most impressive massive young star clusters in the Milky Way – the spectacular star-forming region NGC 3603 – as imaged by Hubble. This image was produced in anticipation of the launch of STS-125, the fifth and final servicing mission to Hubble.
Credit: ESA/Hubble (Luis Calçada) & NASA

This is the first image of a celestial object taken with the newly repaired Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). The camera was restored to operation during the STS-125 Servicing Mission to upgrade the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

The barred spiral galaxy NGC 6217 was photographed on 13 June and 8 July 2009, as part of the initial testing and calibration of Hubble’s ACS. The galaxy lies up to 90 million light-years away in the north circumpolar constellation Ursa Major.

Space shuttle Atlantis met up with the Hubble Space Telescope today. The grapple of the telescope using the shuttles robotic arm took place at 1:14 p.m. EDT. The telescope will be latched to a high-tech, lazy Susan device known as the Flight Support System for the duration of the servicing work.

The STS-125 crew will perform five spacewalks to refurbish, restore and renew the Hubble Space Telescope. The first spacewalk is scheduled for Thursday.

NASA officials announced Thursday that Shuttle mission STS-125 to repair the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope is now scheduled for launch on 12 May 2009.

The delay to the mission, from the original launch date in September, was due to the failure of a data-handling unit on the telescope. Despite a successful switchover to a back-up unit, officials decided that a replacement unit would need to form part of the servicing mission. Since then engineers have conducted a series of tests on a spare unit to ensure it is qualified for spaceflight. These tests are on schedule and the plan is to ship the replacement Science Instrument Command and Data Handling System for integration on the Shuttle payload in spring 2009.

Servicing Mission 4 is the last repair mission to Hubble, and will see the installation of two new instruments, WFC3 and COS, the repair of two others, ACS and STIS, along with other upgrades to the spacecraft.
Credit:NASA & ESA