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From: starrfie@hydro.la.asu.edu (Sumner Starrfield) Subject: MCC Status Report 13 Date: Wed, 8 Dec 93 9:13:59 MST Forwarded message: >From starrfie Wed Dec 8 09:11:00 1993 Date: Wed, 8 Dec 93 09:10:59 -0700 From: starrfie (Sumner Starrfield) To: starrfie Subject: MCC Status Report 13 - sci.space.news #5154 In article <2e4r73$nq1@reznor.larc.nasa.gov>, sdd@larc.nasa.gov (Steve Derry) writes: Newsgroups: sci.space.news Path: lanews.la.asu.edu!asuvax!gatech!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!ames!dont-send-mail-to-path-lines From: sdd@larc.nasa.gov (Steve Derry) Subject: MCC Status Report 13 Message-ID: <vsnet-history1872@hoge.baba.hajime.jp> To: sci-space-news@uunet.uu.net Followup-To: sci.space Sender: digester@news.arc.nasa.gov Nntp-Posting-Host: jmsparc.larc.nasa.gov Reply-To: s.d.derry@larc.nasa.gov Organization: NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA USA X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL8] Date: Wed, 8 Dec 93 08:17:55 MST Approved: sci-space-news@ames.arc.nasa.gov Content-Length: 3843 Lines: 77 Mission Control Center STS-61 Status Report #13 Wednesday, December 8, 1993, 8 a.m. CST STS-61 crew members performed brain and eye surgery on the Hubble Space Telescope early Wednesday with the successful installation of the Corrective Optics Space Telescope Axial Replacement unit and a computer co-processor. Astronauts Kathy Thornton and Tom Akers begain the mission's fourth spacewalk at 9:13 p.m. CST Tuesday. Once in the Space Shuttle Endeavour's payload bay, the duo removed the blurred High Speed Photometer from the telescope and installed the COSTAR in its place, completing the task about 11:35 p.m. CST Tuesday. The COSTAR is designed to correct for the spherical aberration in the telescope's primary mirror before light reaches its faint imaging systems. The corrective optics will compensate for the problem, like eyeglasses or contacts correct human sight. Following the installation, ground controllers performed a successful "aliveness" test of the instrument which checks its communications, telemetry and electrical continuity. Spacewalkers Thornton and Akers conducted the COSTAR installation in record time, completing the task in 35 minutes. It had been predicted that the task would take three hours and 10 minutes. Thornton and Akers then placed the blurred High Speed Photometer into the storage locker that previously had held the COSTAR instrument and moved to their next task, the installation of a new co-processor, in the payload bay about 1:25 a.m. CST Wednesday. The co-processor will enhance the telescope's memory capability and enable it to process data faster. Ground controllers, at about 3:41 a.m. CST, reported that the co- processor had powered up successfully. Astronauts disconnected the telescope's computer while installing the co- processor, a procedure roughly equivalent to major surgery on a human being, scientists said. "Essentially what we were doing was brain surgery," said Ken Ledbetter, HST program manager, during a press briefing Wednesday. "In a day or so, hopefully, the patient will be ready to walk on its own." Referring to the COSTAR installation, HST senior project scientist Dr. Dave Leckrone added, "We also conducted eye surgery on the telescope." HST scientists said they hope to complete the initial checkout of the telescope and receive its first images within six to eight weeks. However, it will be about 13 weeks before a comprehensive checkout of the orbiting observatory is completed, they said. During Wednesday's six hour and 50 minute spacewalk, Akers broke the all- time American space-walking record previously set by Eugene Cernan, who had accumulated a total of 24 hours and 14 minutes performing spacewalks on Gemini 9 and Apollo 17. At the end of Wednesday's spacewalk, Akers had accumulated a total of 29 hours and 40 minutes. Crew members' sleep period begins at 9:57 a.m. CST and flight controllers will awaken them at 5:57 p.m. today as they begin their eighth day in space. Commander Dick Covey and Pilot Ken Bowersox will perform a small jet firing to circularize the shuttle's orbit in preparation of the reboost and release of the telescope about 12:57 a.m. CST Friday. During the fifth spacewalk on the eighth flight day, astronauts Story Musgrave and Jeff Hoffman will install the Solar Array Drive Electronics and the Goddard High Resolution Spectrograph Redundancy Kit, a power backup for a HST science instrument. Once those tasks are complete, Musgrave and Hoffman will install the newly fabricated covers on the old magnetometers. Finally ground controllers will command the telescope's two newly installed solar arrays to unfurl. All of Endeavour's systems continue to perform well, as the shuttle circles the Earth every 95 minutes in a 320 by 313 nautical mile orbit. -- Sumner Starrfield Department of Physics and Astronomy Arizona State University BOX 871504 Tempe AZ 85287-1504
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