One of the first things then-astronaut John Grunsfeld and his spacewalking partner Drew Feustel tackled during the final servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope was to install a soft-capture mechanism onto the observatory's aft bulkhead. With just nine flights remaining before the 1981-2011 shuttle program was to end, NASA outfitted its flagship observatory with a Low-Impact Docking System (LIDS) interface and associated relative navigation targets so a potential future servicing vehicle-which did not exist at the time-could capture the telescope without a shuttle-like robot arm for grappling. At the very least, Hubble would need a propulsion system either to make a controlled reentry into Earth's atmosphere or boost itself into a higher graveyard orbit. Grunsfeld and his STS-125 crewmates left Hubble in May 2009 poised for what has become a largely unbroken series of astronomical observations, including cooperative studies with the infrared James Webb Space Telescope, which began operations in July.
展开▼
