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Hubble rescue preparation yields awesome gallery of industrial machines
Here at DVICE, we're gluttons for high resolution photography of big machines, though this gallery strikes something of a melancholy note. On October 8th, NASA Space Shuttle Atlantis will embark on a mission to restore the Hubble Space Telescope to its full operational capacity. It's the last planned mission to service the orbiting telescope, which for 18 years has delivered unimaginably beautiful views of distant galaxies.
It's also somewhat of a sad liftoff for the Atlantis, which will be completing its 30th mission as well as one of the 10 last launches scheduled for NASA's space shuttles before the fleet is retired in 2010.
For months now, the crew and the shuttle's technicians alike have been working hard to make this upcoming launch a reality, and luckily there are some amazing pictures to document it. Check out our favorites from the rescue preparations in the gallery below.
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Via The Big Picture
By smeagollette at 5:14 AM ON 09/05/08
Shuttle progam retiring its fleet!? NOOOOO! How will we repair our satellites? How will we get to the space station? Is NASA planning something new? I've got to go to the NASA website, this news is disheartening! *sniffle*
By lfbnumone at 6:49 PM ON 09/05/08
Virgin Galatic is on the way and will/could shuttle to the space station. But my concern is the moon for eventual launch to Mars et. al.
By XwarpfactorX at 12:51 AM ON 09/06/08
Dont fret. The shuttles are being retired to make way for Project Constellation, which involves the Orion spacecraft, Ares series of rockets and the Altair lunar lander. Just look up Project Constellation, the details are exciting.
By BuzzKILL Lightyear at 5:09 PM ON 09/08/08
Project Constellation shares one thing with the out going Shuttle fleet, it will be here late(around 5 YEARS late). You would think NASA would have this sort of thing planed out and have a replacement ready or nearly so(Venture Star=canceled, DC-X"Delta Clipper"=canceled then brought back only to be destroyed due to poor funding). After trying to look ahead to NEW ideas and designs NASA had to turn back and upscale the Apollo design idea(a capsule) and recycle shuttle components to save a bit of cash. In the last layover till the Shuttle came out NASA lost Skylab something it had thrown together and nearly lost only to do an "Apollo 13" and rescue the station only let it sit and eventually fall uncontrollably back to Earth(killing a cow and gaining the agency a STILL unpaid littering ticket). At least now we are(were?) in good standings with the Russians to use their "Apollo era" Soyuz capsule to ferry crew to and forth ISS. And oh by they some more or less "useless" treaty is going to put a hold on us "buying" these Soyuz flights if we don't amend it(the "treaty") again soon because of the company that makes the Soyuz needs a heads up to build more of them if/when we need them. The Soyuz is fine for crew but can't lift anything more than that, the variant of Soyuz capsule called Progress can carry cargo to and from space stations 'automatically' but, only in a limited fashion. If(and when) delays happen with "Project Constellation" like it happened with the Shuttle then I hope all those little "Space Access" start ups are well on their way to getting/being ready because there might be a whole lot more station/things coming down overhead(still got and Skylab repellent?) if their not, figuratively of course.
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BuzzKILL Lightyear:
Project Constellation shares one thing with the out going Shuttle fleet, it will be here late(around 5 YEARS late)....More »