Back in September, right before a Shuttle was due to launch to service Hubble, a major hardware failure on Hubble forced NASA to delay the flight. NASA announced today that the delay be until May 12, 2009. On that date, the Shuttle will launch and visit Hubble one last time. Astronauts will install two new cameras, put in more gyros, try to fix one camera that shorted out a few years ago, and of course install a backup for the hardware that failed.
About Bad Astronomy
If you went to BadAstronomy.com and found yourself here, never fear: the BA Blog has moved to its new home at Discover Blogs. The original BA site (with the Moon Hoax debunking and all that) is still online, too.
Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He has written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic, and fights misuses of science as well as praising the wonder of real science.
Contact me: The Bad Astronomer "at" gmail "dot" com
Bad Astronomy is a Wikio Top Blog! Clearly, Wikio has excellent taste. 
Bad Astronomy was chosen as one of Time.com's Best Blogs of 2009. Subscribe to BA using an RSS Feed
Death from the Skies!
Order a copy of Death from the Skies! from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Borders.
"If things worked the way I wanted them to, any reporter about to do another 'sensational' story on deadly meteors would consult this volume, and bang! common sense would find its way into the news. How strange would that world be?"
-- Adam Savage, Mythbusters"Reading this book is like getting punched in the face by Carl Sagan. Frightening, but oddly exhilarating."
-- Daniel H. Wilson, author of How to Survive a Robot UprisingSocial/Networking/Cool Stuff
DISCOVERmagazine.com: Latest Articles on Space- Will Our Universe Collide With a Neighboring One?
- Visual Science: Polishing a Cosmic Spyglass
- Visual Science: NASA Unveils Its New Rocket
- Is Jupiter's Bizarre Moon Our Best Hope for Finding Extraterrestrial Life?
- Reviews: Clashes With Aliens, America vs. Science, and Really Horrible Sci-Fi: The Best in Science Culture
- DISCOVER Blogs: The Loom
December 4th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
They will not only put in two cameras, but also a new spectrograph, the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS). As an old STIS guy, and a current member of the Boulderatti, I’m surprised you left that off. COS is, after all, built by the good folks in CASA, at CU Boulder.
Hope it’s not freezing there.
K
December 4th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
I’ve got a gut feeling that the Obama administration will authorized one more mission to Hubble. Especially considering the the James Webb Telescope is behind schedual.
December 4th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
Well, hopefully they won’t lose any tool bags during the mission.
December 4th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
Dear Mr. Plait,
Thank you for educating America, and thank you for defending science and democracy against mythology, arrogance and dictatorship.
Your enthusiasm is felt and appreciated.
Good luck in life, the universe and everything,
- MJ, St. Petersburg, Florida
December 4th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
Finally! Looking forward to the new and improved HST.
December 4th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
Looking forward to seeing the last twin birds in the nest (two shuttles ready to go) not to mention the last non-57-degree north launch of the Shuttle system.
December 4th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
Darn, I won’t be back from Qatar by then. And I wanted to go down there to watch the launch. Okay, time to hit the NASA web page and see when the next launch after that is that I can go see.
December 4th, 2008 at 10:15 pm
I’m almost giddy.
December 5th, 2008 at 12:52 am
I just hope they remember the Hubble takes 10W-30 oil.
December 5th, 2008 at 4:03 am
Bit off-topic, but there’s an article on Cracked on “Cosmic disasters that could kill you” – someone there been reading your book perhaps?
My name should be the link – beware of NSFW language.
December 5th, 2008 at 5:32 am
“…put in more gyros…”
It’s good to see that I’m not the only one that works better after eating a couple gyros. Them’s good eatin’.
December 5th, 2008 at 6:25 am
And let me tell you, 7 months is a long long time to wait, after delivering hardware bloody well on time! Then to have to pull yourself away from your new project and get back in Hubble repair mode.
I tell ya, I don’t know how the planetary probe people do it. They have to wait years between launch and arrival at the target. That’s gotta be draining at least.
December 5th, 2008 at 7:24 am
Is STSCI involved in this mission at all?
December 5th, 2008 at 7:53 am
STScI is quite involved. They’re the experts on analysis, so they’ve been involved in testing the new equipment, and will of course be working some very late (and early) hours during the mission and Orbital Verification period, to make sure everything is performing correctly.
Not to mention all the new code they’ve had to write to control and analyze data from the new and repaired instruments. Even the repaired ACS, one of whose design goals was to operate the same as before, is just different enough to require a few adjustments to the operation. I’m sure there was a lot more work to do on the brand new instruments.
December 5th, 2008 at 8:16 am
10W-30? I thought the Hubble eats light and poops magic.
December 5th, 2008 at 8:20 am
Well you know what they say: Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
December 5th, 2008 at 8:28 am
What? no one complaining about budget overruns? No one complaining how NASA sucks? wow, is this not Badastronomy? Home of Bashing NASA and praising SpaceX? Surely the Hubble exceeded their budget.
–
I mean, we could have built roads with the Hubble budget! Feed the Homeless and gave them shelter.
/sarcasm
I say cut 100% military spending and give it all to Nasa. If we have one hope left its the hope that humanity won’t make earth an early grave.
December 5th, 2008 at 9:22 am
Cool! Justified men/women launch up into space. Doing real science. Getting the Hubble tricked out for another few years of amazing observations. This rocks. This is the kind of mission that I wish I could be on.
Oh wow, send me and Karen Nyberg up there to fix Hubble. Epic. Awesome. Karen Nyberg I mean with the awesome comment. Not so much me on the Hubble fix mission. I’d probably be getting sick from the zero g. But I know Karen Nyberg wouldn’t because she is teh hawtest space astronaut lady in the whole universe. And the universe is like, well, really, really big apparently.
With Nasa sucking so much lately with the MSL news and the ongoing totally utter lameless of it’s floating turkey in the sky ISS (that it can’t even launch to in a few years) fixing Hubble is a glimmer in my eye (but not as much of a glimmer as you Karen Nyberg! You are a gamma ray burst at 1000 light years. But without the ozone depletion. I need to get better at these comments if I’m going to attract your attention….).
December 5th, 2008 at 9:35 am
No one complaining how NASA sucks? wow, is this not Badastronomy? Home of Bashing NASA and praising SpaceX?
That’s Slashdot’s forte’ more than this site. Add in the Direct 2.0 Fanbois and you’re onto something over there.
Besides, people who have been around NASA, worked for NASA or one of their many contractors etc. (cough, cough, Dr. Plait, your gracious host) who raise their concerns about our country’s space policies and their implementations should be listened to. There are only so many dollars that will be given towards the science and exploration effort in outer space and it is a good thing and not a bad one to have a healthy and respectful debate on the issues. This is especially true where platforms like Constellation are concerned, because what happens now will have to be lived with for decades.
December 5th, 2008 at 10:52 am
I hope the astronauts that are launching up to keep Hubble going know how much we (the general public) appreciate what they are doing and the risks they are taking. If I remember correctly going to Hubble means there is no chance of meeting up with the ISS if there is a problem (to dock with as a safe haven).
And the engineers on the ground and the scientists working on the data and everybody else. It’s a very cool telescope, an awesome endeavor, and I think as a small blog comment that will probably go nowhere I just hope they all know we think they rock. Over and out.
December 5th, 2008 at 11:29 am
Hey Cheyenne. Speaking as one of the engineers on the ground…
Thanks!
December 5th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
. If I remember correctly going to Hubble means there is no chance of meeting up with the ISS if there is a problem (to dock with as a safe haven).
That’s why there’s another shuttle on the pad, ready to go, just in case.
December 5th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
Charles…you’re right about the direction difference, though it’s actually 51 degrees for the ISS flights.
December 7th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
So on May 12th NASA is sending a call girl to ..ah service … the bones of the late Edwin Hubble?
What the!?
That can’t be fun for either of them (hubble coz he’s dead the call girl because well being boned that literally can’t be that satisfying can it?
Seems a waste of money to me ..
Now servicing the Hubble Space Telescope on the otherhand! That would be moneywellspent & wellworth doing!
December 8th, 2008 at 12:00 am
@ Joker :
Ewwwwww …. GROSS!