When NASA determined
within the Nineteen Seventies that the Hubble Area Telescope ought to be serviceable in house, the engineering challenges will need to have appeared almost insurmountable. How might a machine that complicated and delicate be repaired by astronauts carrying 130-kilogram fits with thick gloves?
In the long run, spacewalkers not solely fastened the telescope, they often remade it.
That was potential as a result of engineers designed Hubble to be
toroidal, its main programs specified by wedge-shaped tools bays that astronauts might open from the skin. A sequence of upkeep workstations on the telescope’s outer floor ensured astronauts might have prepared entry to essential telescope elements.
On 5 space-shuttle
servicing missions between 1993 and 2009, 16 spacewalkers changed each main part besides the telescope’s mirrors and outer pores and skin. They elevated its electrical provide by 20 p.c. And so they tripled its means to pay attention and sense gentle, job one in all any telescope.
The now legendary orbital observatory was constructed to final 15 years in house. However with updates, it has operated for greater than 30—a historical past of invention and re-invention to make any engineering workforce proud. “Twice the lifetime,” says astronaut Kathryn Sullivan, who flew on Hubble’s 1990 launch mission. “Simply strive discovering one thing else that has improved with age in house. I dare you.”
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