May 19
Hubble is Released Into Orbit
Posted in: NASA, science, space, Space Tech, Today's Chili
And that’s a wrap: Space shuttle Atlantis crew member Megan McArthur used the shuttle’s robotic arm to release the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit at 8:57 a.m. EST Tuesday, CNN reports. The mission marks the last time humans will touch the 19-year old telescope. Hubble has taken hundreds of thousands of high-resolution images–all free of the earth’s murky atmosphere.
“With soft separation burn, Atlantis now is slowly backing away from the telescope,” NASA said in a statement. “A jet firing will be performed in about a half-hour to increase Atlantis’ separation rate from the telescope, as the seven crew members bid farewell to Hubble for the final time.”
During the repair mission, NASA astronauts performed five spacewalks to install a new deep-space camera, a new spectrograph, new batteries, a guidance sensor, and insulation, and repaired the older main camera and an older spectrograph.
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