hst servicing mission scheduled for days ed campion headquarters washington d c april phone kyle herring johnson space center houston phone release hubble telescope servicing mission scheduled for eleven days the december flight of endeavour on space shuttle mission sts to service the hubble space telescope hst has been scheduled as an day mission designed to accommodate a record five spacewalks with the capability for an additional two if needed the decision to schedule five extravehicular activities or evas was reached following extensive evaluations of underwater training maneuver times required using the shuttle s robot arm based on software simulations and actual eva tasks on previous missions basically what we ve done by going to five evas rather than three is to repackage our margin so that we have the capability to respond to the dynamics or unknowns of spacewalks mission director randy brinkley said it improves the probabilities for mission success while providing added flexibility and adaptability for reacting to real time situations in laying out the specific tasks to be completed on each of the spacewalks officials have determined that changing out the gyros solar arrays and the wide field planetary camera wf pc and installing the corrective optics space telescope axial replacement costar are priority objectives during the mission when we looked at accomplishing all of the tasks highest through lowest priority and recognizing that the major tasks gyros solar arrays wf pc and costar would consume most of the time set aside for each spacewalk five evas were deemed appropriate said milt heflin lead flight director for the mission while the five spacewalks will be unprecedented the use of two alternating spacewalk teams will alleviate placing more stress on the crew than previous missions requiring two three or four evas we have paid close attention to lessons learned during previous spacewalks and factored these into our timeline estimates for five evas heflin said in planning for all space shuttle missions it is necessary to formulate a work schedule that represents as realistic a timeline as possible to accomplish the mission objectives planning currently calls for at least five water tank training sessions that include support from the mission control center called joint integrated simulations lasting between and hours in addition many stand alone underwater training runs will practice individual tasks in each spacewalk various refinements to the specific tasks on each spacewalk will be made based on actual training experience during the months prior to the mission also lessons learned from other spacewalks leading up to the flight will be valuable in assisting the sts crew in its training techniques endeavour s june flight and discovery s july mission both will include spacewalks to evaluate some of the unique tools to be used on the hst mission the evaluations will help in better understanding the differences between the actual weightlessness of space and the ground training in the water tanks at the johnson space center houston and the marshall space flight center huntsville ala also the inflight spacewalking experiences will assist in gaining further insight into the time required for the various tasks and expand the experience levels among the astronaut corps the flight controllers and trainers designed to be serviced by a space shuttle crew hubble was built with grapple fixtures and handholds to assist in the capture and repair procedures the telescope was launched aboard discovery in april at that time the nasa mixed fleet manifest showed the first revisit mission to hst in to change out science instruments and make any repairs that may have become necessary end ron baalke baalke kelvin jpl nasa gov jet propulsion lab m s telos the aweto from new zealand pasadena ca is part caterpillar and part vegetable
