Modern Camera on Hubble
Astronauts installed a Modern camera on the Hubble Space Telescope in the first of a series of spacewalks to upgrade the aging instrument.
In the seven-hour, 20-minute long spacewalk astronauts substituted Hubble’s camera with a more innovative model. The Wide Field Planetary Camera 3 will allow astronomers to see deeper into space and to accept images in the three
Areas of the light spectrum – ultraviolet, obvious and near infrared.
The astronauts also substituted a computer that malfunctioned last year. The so-called Science Instrument Command and Data Handling Unit controls the telescope’s science instruments and formats information to be sent back to scientists on Earth.
Other smaller tasks got the Hubble ready for future work. The spacewalkers experienced only a few minor hitches with some tight bolts, pushing the spacewalk longest than its designed six-and-a-half hours.
“We acquired the Hubble and gave Hubble a hug, but in conventional Hubble manner it threw us a few curves,” a Hubble veteran on his third activate to the telescope, said after completing the act.
It is the first of five designed spacewalks in as a lot of days to add two Modern instruments, repair two others and substitute other hardware in frequently delicate operations to Hubble.
On Friday, spacewalkers goodwill removes and substitute three pairs of gyroscopes that keep the telescope adjusted and pointed towards areas being analyzed by astronomers.
The crew Wednesday applied the robotic arm on the space shuttle Atlantis to capture Hubble ahead of the work.
Scientists say the upgrades, which United States space agency NASA hopes will extend Hubble’s lifetime until leastwise 2014, will continue to allow clues about the origin and nature of the universe.
Since its launching in 1990, Hubble accepts helped scientists to place the age of the universe at 13.7 billion years, learn that black holes are at the center of most galaxies, monitor planetary formation and discover that the universe are expanding at an ever-faster pace.
