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- Instruments added during SM4 will greatly expand the scientific power of the Hubble Space Telescope, putting Hubble at the "apex" of its capabilities, adding improvement factors of 10-70 times in certain key performance areas.
- Hubble Space Telescope Servicing Mission 4 is the last time humans will visit Hubble. NASA's scientists, engineers and astronauts are working together to make Hubble better than it has been before. See what NASA has planned for this last mission to Hubble; from new science instruments, to two challenging and never-done-before instrument repairs, and numerous upgrades.
- Shortly after NASA Administrator Michael Griffin announced that NASA would add a servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble's most prominent camera and most used instrument, died. The incredible engineering challenge to understand the problem, develop a strategy to fix ACS that astronauts could perform, create the tools and new circuit board components in an incredibly short time, could not have been accomplished if the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) hadn't failed a few years earlier. Goddard Engineers leveraged techniques they developed for STIS repair to fix ACS.
- Follow scientists and engineers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center as they build the X-ray Telescopes and an X-ray Spectrometer for the Japanese X-ray Observatory Astro-E2 mission. These instruments use unique technologies to provide light-weight but sensitive instruments. We see the team face and overcome challenges, as well as their interactions with the Japanese colleagues. This program also describes the science of spectroscopy and what the satellite helps us to learn about objects such as black holes. The included educator guide provides instructions for using the "Building the Coolest X-ray Satellite" DVD in the classroom. The guide includes discussion questions and activities related to the program content. The topics covered include science careers, optics, cryogenics, X-ray astronomy and working on an international project.
- The composite Super Lightweight Interchangeable Carrier (SLIC) is a new breed of equipment carrier that will allow the Space Shuttle to transport a full complement of scientific instruments and other components to Hubble. Made of carbon fiber with a cyanate ester resin and a titanium metal matrix composite, SLIC is the first all-composite carrier to fly on the shuttle. This flat, reusable pallet looks very different from the carriers flown on previous Hubble servicing missions because of its efficient design. This design, plus SLIC's composite construction, makes it much lighter and stronger than traditional aluminum carriers. About half the weight of its predecessors, SLIC shows a dramatic increase in performance over other Hubble equipment carriers, with nearly double the carrying capability.
- Water for Tea is a movie about a high-tech, high-profile mission called GPM. But the movie seeks to grab viewers' attention through images of teacups and teapots. What's going on here? Recognizing the challenge of translating the often arcane, techno-jargon of advanced space-based research to people who may be unfamiliar with that rarefied language, the production team set about devising a world of their own. They needed a way to implicitly relate the political and scientific importance of NASA's GPM mission without having to delve into its nuts and bolts. The environment they created for the movie established the rules right away. Teacups and a teapot stand in for satellites that will comprise the GPM fleet, as well as for features of the Earth's fresh-water environment. They sit on an ethereal table in a quiet, meditative space. It's a visual motif designed to create a relationship between the immense scale of a space-based satellite fleet and individuals on the ground. Thematically, the table acts like the Earth. It is both unpredictable and powerful. As the movie progresses, the table suggests not only a transformable environment, but also a place for contemplation and creation. When a painting appears draped across the table's surface, we see an artist's expression of the foliage that fills the space around the table-an expression of the larger world represented by nothing more astounding than ink on paper. We see the Earth as the province of human contemplation and creativity. GPM stands for Global Precipitation Measurement. A multinational endeavor designed to transform human understanding about the water cycle, GPM will be an Earth science research project like no other in history.
- Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS), the most versatile spectrograph ever to fly on Hubble, ceased operations in August 2004 due to the failure of its power supply. In order to restore STIS to operational status, astronauts will perform a never-before-attempted on-orbit replacement of an electronics board inside STIS's main electronics box. On Earth this operation is relatively simple, but in space many challenges confront the astronauts as they work to replace the failed board including working to remove 111 tiny, non-captive screws with astronaut gloves.