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The Hubble Space Telescope
The space shuttle Atlantis was launched on May 11 to rendezvous with the Hubble Space Telescope. The purpose of the mission is to do service work on this great telescope in order to fix a few minor issues and hopefully increase the lifespan for at least another five years or so.
Some people might question why NASA is bothering to service the Hubble again. After all, it will be 20 years old next year. But the Hubble has been one of the most important telescopes ever built. Originally launched in 1990, this telescope has made important discoveries in astronomy and astrophysics that have literally forced the rewriting of books on those subjects.
Back in 2003, it was noted that 2% of NASA's budget goes to the Hubble Space Telescope, yet is provides 33% of NASA's results. Over 4000 papers have been written to present those results. Some of the findings helped solve long-standing issues. For instance, we now have a more refined age for the universe and a more accurate estimate of how fast the universe is expanding. Hubble helped establish the absolute existence of black holes, after astronomers had spent nearly 40 years of pondering their existence. The telescope helped establish the existence of planets around other stars. It has also photographed stars that were still forming and stars that were dying. Of course, there are thousands of pretty pictures!
The Hubble Space Telescope is far from finished. Astronomers and astrophysicists are still lined up to use the telescope. It will be years before another space telescope will be launched that will have the same capabilities as the Hubble. NASA was reluctant to send a shuttle to the Hubble after the damaged shuttle Columbia broke up in 2003. It was decided that all future missions would only go to the International Space Station so that the astronauts could take refuge if another shuttle becomes damaged. But the importance of this great telescope has prompted the current daring mission. Nevertheless, NASA is not taking chances and, for the first time ever, another shuttle is on the launch pad ready to blast off if the astronauts get into trouble.
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