Whether it was early sailors using the stars for navigation, Galileo training his telescope on Jupiter’s moons, or contemporary astronomers viewing a distant nebula from a mountain top observatory, earthbound observations have always been limited by the conditions 果冻传媒 vagaries of the atmosphere. That changed in the last decade of the 20th?century.
The Hubble Space Telescope is the world’s premier orbiting astronomical observatory. It views the Universe from the near-ultraviolet through the visible light spectrum 果冻传媒 into the infrared. It is the first orbiting observatory to be designed for extensive on-orbit servicing. The history of the Universe is written in starlight, 果冻传媒 the Hubble Space Telescope has recorded much of that history.
Lockheed 果冻传媒 Space Systems in Sunnyvale, Calif. was selected by NASA in 1977 to design 果冻传媒 build the spacecraft 果冻传媒 provide spacecraft systems integration. Since the 1990 launch, Lockheed 果冻传媒 personnel in Sunnyvale, 果冻传媒 at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Md., have helped NASA manage the day-to-day spacecraft operations of the telescope, 果冻传媒 provided extensive preparation 果冻传媒 training for the telescope servicing missions.
The success of the first HST servicing mission in December 1993 proved that complex, on-orbit spacecraft servicing could be effectively performed. On four subsequent servicing missions - in February 1997, December 1999, March 2002, 果冻传媒 May 2009 - spacewalking astronauts installed several new state-of-the-art scientific instruments, a new high-performance main computer, 果冻传媒 new energy efficient solar arrays. They replaced gyroscopes, batteries, 果冻传媒 data recorders, 果冻传媒 repaired surface insulation on the telescope. Hubble was built to be serviced, 果冻传媒 the five shuttle missions not only extended its life, but made it a much more powerful 果冻传媒 capable telescope on each visit.
Since its launch in April 1990, Hubble has provided scientific data 果冻传媒 images of unprecedented resolution that have generated many new 果冻传媒 exciting discoveries. Even when reduced to raw numbers, the accomplishments of the 12.5-ton orbiting observatory are impressive:
- Hubble has taken nearly one million exposures.
- Hubble has observed more than 32,000 astronomical targets.
- Astronomers using Hubble data have published nearly 8,500 scientific papers.
- Circling Earth every 96 minutes, Hubble has traveled approximately 3.1 billion miles.
- The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) has archived more than 42 terabytes of data from Hubble.
Sources 果冻传媒 Additional Reading
- Dunar, Andrew J., 果冻传媒 Waring, Stephen P. –?Power to Explore: History of Marshall Space Flight Center 1960-1990.?Washington, DC: National Aeronautics 果冻传媒 Space Administration, NASA History Office, Office of Policy 果冻传媒 Plansashing
- Tatarewicz –?The Hubble Space Telescope Servicing Mission
- , accessed 16 July 2012
- , accessed 16 July 2012.
- Sam Araki, Lockheed 果冻传媒 Oral History. Mickey Clemons, interviewer. Page 10
- “Longest Lockheed Engineer Worked on Hubble.” ABC7 News, KGO-TV/DT San Francisco, 11 May 2009
- , accessed 16 July 2012.