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From: starrfie@hydro.la.asu.edu (Sumner Starrfield) Subject: MCC Status Report 05 Date: Sat, 4 Dec 93 15:24:08 MST Mission Control Center STS-61 Status Report #5 Saturday, December 4, 1993, 8 a.m. CST The third day of the STS-61 Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission included the successful rendezvous, grapple and berthing of the HST in the Space Shuttle Endeavour's cargo bay. Commander Dick Covey maneuvered Endeavour within 30 feet of the free- flying HST before Mission Specialist Claude Nicollier used Endeavour's robot arm to grapple the telescope at 2:48 a.m. CST when the orbiter was several hundred miles east of Australia over the South Pacific. Nicollier berthed the telescope in the shuttle's cargo bay at 3:26 a.m. CST. "Houston, Endeavour has a firm handshake with Mr. Hubble's Telescope," Commander Dick Covey told ground controllers after the shuttle's robot arm had grappled the telescope. When Endeavour captured the HST, the telescope had traveled 530 million miles and made 19,695 orbits of the Earth since it was placed in orbit in April 1990. Following the berthing of the telescope, crew members and ground controllers used cameras mounted on the robot arm to conduct a visual survey of the HST giving observers their first look at the telescope in three-and-a-half years. During visual surveys of the HST , crew members and ground controllers saw a kink and twisting in the outer bi-stem of one of two solar arrays on the telescope. However , after review HST program managers decided to follow the pre-flight plan for rolling up and retracting the solar arrays at the end of the first extravehicular activity or spacewalk at about 5:30 a.m. CST Sunday. The stowage of the solar arrays is a two step process with the initial step involving the rolling up of the solar arrays and the second step involving the actual folding up of the arrays against the telescope. The solar arrays provide power to the telescope. Each array stands on a four foot mast that supports a retractable wing of solar panels 40 feet long and 8.2 feet wide. Crew members' sleep period begins at 9:57 a.m. CST and they will awaken at 5:57 p.m. CST today to begin their fourth flight day activities which will include the first extravehicular activity or spacewalk. Mission specialists Story Musgrave and Jeff Hoffman will leave the orbiter's airlock at about 10:52 p.m. CST today to begin the servicing tasks on the telescope. Musgrave and Hoffman, sometimes referred to as "The Odd Couple" because they will go on the first, third and fifth spacewalks scheduled during this mission, will reenter the airlock at about 5:07 a.m. CST Sunday. All of Endeavour's systems continue to perform well as the shuttle circles the Earth every 95 minutes in a 319 by 313 nautical mile orbit.
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