We are watching STS-125, the final shuttle mission to repair the Hubble Telescope. Right now Michael J. Massimino and Michael T. Good are in the 6th hour of their spacewalk to repair the STIS package on the Hubble, including a cover with 111 tiny screws.
This is a special mission for us, one we feel connected to if only in some extremely remote way. We watched the ramp up and mission development on NOVA Science Now about a year ago. In the mean time we have followed the writings of Phil Plait, who writes Bad Astronomy, and worked on the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph, or STIS package that is being worked on today. This mission also features K. Megan McArthur, an Oceanographer trained at Scripps, as one of the mission specialists. She’ll be the last person to handle Hubble.
Of course we have enjoyed so any of the shots from Hubble in the Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) so we desperately want to enjoy many more fine images and discoveries.
We have also found another connection to the recent space adventures in what might seem an odd place. The Beagle Project, which aims to rebuild the HMS Beagle to set out on round the world science and outreach in the spirit of the great explorations of Darwin et al. have become partners with the ISS and NASA. Karen James’ infectious enthusiasm for this partnership have been rubbing off on us here.
It was not a straight forward mission to begin with, but somehow they managed to find all sorts of problems and issues that got in the way. Things got tense and it seemed as though everything was going to hell in a hand basket quickly, yet they stayed on it and eventually overcame all the problems to successfully replace the STIS.
Perseverance.
