Hubble Space Telescope Still Going Strong After 30 Years

[HiloHawaiian]

During the stay-at-home doldrums, a few friends and I are waltzing down memory lane this weekend. My first big photo job was to document the construction of the Hubble Space Telescope for NASA, which lead to a full-time job at Lockheed Space Systems. Lockheed knew how to make incredibly stable, gyro-controlled orbiting platforms from making spy satellites — critical for distant universe observations while traveling 17,000 mph. The design spec, explained by NASA, was to be able to clearly focus on a dime atop the Empire State Blg in NYC from Silicon Valley, CA, while moving 17,000 mph in orbit. How they did it is engineering genius...

HST became the most remarkable telescope since Galileo’s first design. HST discovered our Milky Way galaxy is vastly bigger — it’s as big as we thought the universe was 50 yrs ago.

The news article has some shots I took 35 yr ago in the clean room. Designed for a 15 yr lifespan, HST is past 30. With no Shuttle, the gyroscopes can’t be swapped-out anymore, and HST needs 3 working gyros for 100% operation. It has 6, but it’s down to 3. With SW updates and tech wizardry manipulation of the reaction wheels, NASA thinks they can keep HST going beyond 2025. Even down to 1 gyro, 80% of the instruments work.

The most important shots HST took were the Deep Field montage images showing 1000’s of Milky Way-sized galaxies in one frame. Astronomers came to the realization the universe is vastly bigger than we thought, so big it’s almost beyond human comprehension. They also realized alien life is a mathematical certainty, but contact is extremely difficult due to the incomprehensibly vast distances. Download the full resolution files of the Deep Field imagery, and see 3000+ galaxies in one frame. 342 images taken over 10 days, merged together — and this is just a tiny sliver of the sky. Each solar system in each galaxy could have a planet in the “habitation” zone near it’s star. Star Trek could be right!!
The distances are so great, they’re measured in time. Hubble is the 1st time machine!

Hubble Telescope Still Going Strong 30 Years Later

As the Hubble Space Telescope mission reaches its 30th anniversary, we explore some of the recent engineering keeping the telescope working well beyond its expected life.

www.lockheedmartin.com

The Hubble Deep Fields

www.spacetelescope.org

 

[Munchingmolar]

View attachment 6755

During the stay-at-home doldrums, a few friends and I are waltzing down memory lane this weekend. My first big photo job was to document the construction of the Hubble Space Telescope for NASA, which lead to a full-time job at Lockheed Space Systems. Lockheed knew how to make incredibly stable, gyro-controlled orbiting platforms from making spy satellites — critical for distant universe observations while traveling 17,000 mph. The design spec, explained by NASA, was to be able to clearly focus on a dime atop the Empire State Blg in NYC from Silicon Valley, CA, while moving 17,000 mph in orbit. How they did it is engineering genius...

HST became the most remarkable telescope since Galileo’s first design. HST discovered our Milky Way galaxy is vastly bigger — it’s as big as we thought the universe was 50 yrs ago.

The news article has some shots I took 35 yr ago in the clean room. Designed for a 15 yr lifespan, HST is past 30. With no Shuttle, the gyroscopes can’t be swapped-out anymore, and HST needs 3 working gyros for 100% operation. It has 6, but it’s down to 3. With SW updates and tech wizardry manipulation of the reaction wheels, NASA thinks they can keep HST going beyond 2025. Even down to 1 gyro, 80% of the instruments work.

The most important shots HST took were the Deep Field montage images showing 1000’s of Milky Way-sized galaxies in one frame. Astronomers came to the realization the universe is vastly bigger than we thought, so big it’s almost beyond human comprehension. They also realized alien life is a mathematical certainty, but contact is extremely difficult due to the incomprehensibly vast distances. Download the full resolution files of the Deep Field imagery, and see 3000+ galaxies in one frame. 342 images taken over 10 days, merged together — and this is just a tiny sliver of the sky. Each galaxy could have a planet in the “habitation” zone near it’s star. The distances are so great, they’re measured in time. Hubble is the 1st time machine!

Hubble Telescope Still Going Strong 30 Years Later

As the Hubble Space Telescope mission reaches its 30th anniversary, we explore some of the recent engineering keeping the telescope working well beyond its expected life.

www.lockheedmartin.com

The Hubble Deep Fields

www.spacetelescope.org

Absolutely Awesome ?

 

[Goober]

I remember breathlessly waiting for the first image from Hubble to be shown. To see that blurry shot was such a disappointment. But the great tech minds behind the scenes worked out the problems, built the prescribed corrective lenses and figured out how to fix it on orbit. This to me was the true success story of Hubble.

Love your personal memories and sharing them here. Thanks.

 

[HiloHawaiian]

I remember breathlessly waiting for the first image from Hubble to be shown. To see that blurry shot was such a disappointment. But the great tech minds behind the scenes worked out the problems, built the prescribed corrective lenses and figured out how to fix it on orbit. This to me was the true success story of Hubble.

Love your personal memories and sharing them here. Thanks.

OMG. Yea. Perkin Elmer mis-aligned a lens grinding machine, ground some glass to wrong spec. QC somehow didn’t catch it (?) NASA was new to orbiting observatories, Lockheed wasn’t. Lockheed insisted NASA let them do an end-to-end Sat system test on the ground (since Lockheed didn’t make the optical section) at $2M. NASA said no, too pricey, besides every sub-system was tested individually. Unless all systems are tested together as a whole before launch, it’s a gigantic crap-shoot. It cost NASA $5B to fix HST w/corrective lenses & an extra Shuttle launch. Initially, NASA demanded Lockheed (Infuriating, but typical), take the hit for this, so they did, until the truth finally came out a few months later...

What I wrote a friend yesterday:
Hubble had quite an adventure getting into orbit, getting optically fixed, then blowing us away. The acoustic chamber photo was the last major test before shipment to the launch site (it tests the complete Sat w/launch-level low-frequency sounds to see if anything falls off, LOL) . We had worked all weekend, very tired, it was early Monday morning. Morale was high, we could see the finish line. Most of the astronauts slated for the HST mission arrived to see the beast. Normally, there’d be a dozen folks in this picture, but nearly everyone was in a small room that controlled the chamber testing to watch the Challenger launch. A small B&W TV with a coat-hanger antenna was all that was available in this shielded area. We watched the Challerger tragedy in near silence. I was standing next to astronaut Kathy Sullivan, who cried softly, friends just died. All of us slowly realized Hubble wasn’t going anywhere soon. Depressed, I decided to take a few more pictures, not knowing what else to do. I grabbed a guard, dressed him as a tech, and put in the shot for scale since the area became deserted very quickly. Preparations were then made for long-term storage. It didn’t launch until 1990, nearly 4 years later...