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A Cosmic 'ime Machine

. . . Even though the details of astronomical knowledge
change as new discoveries are made, there are three major
themes that have guided the astronomer's quest for
knowledge for several decades. The same themes will
continue to express the aims of astrophysics for the
foreseeable future. These are to understand the following:
the origin of the universe,
the laws of physics governing
the universe, and
the birth of stars and planets
and the advent of life.
The goals are vast in scope, challenging in their
complexity, and profound in their implication. . . .

Thomas Donahue, chairman

Space Science Board
Mission Directive
wenty years in the planning and the after the explosion that set in motion the evo-
making, the Hubble Space Telescope is lution of our universe.
ready to breach Earth's murky atmos- The telescope is named for Edwin Powell
phere and show us the universe with such Hubble, the astronomer who, in the 1920's,
clarity that we will see almost to the beginning first identified galaxies outside our own Milky
of time. Way and determined that most are speeding
The telescope, orbiting 380 miles above the away from us. On his work is based the idea
Earth and beyond the distorting effects of our that our universe is expanding from an original
atmosphere, will look five times more deeply "big bang" 15 to 20 billion years ago.
into space, detect objects 50 times fainter, and The mission of the Hubble Space
view them with 10 times finer detail than Telescope is to explore our expanding and
earthbound observatories—expanding the visi- evolving universe. To enlighten us about the
ble universe by 125 times. age of our universe and its past, present, and
With this telescope, a cosmic time machine, future, the telescope will be fixed not only on
we will see light that is 14 billion years old, the most distant celestial objects, like the
light that started hurtling toward us shortly newly discovered quasar, 14 billion light-years
 Pulsar in the Crab Nebula
. I 2 billion light-years

Quasar in
Ursa Major
14 billion light-years

. .v

Spiral galaxy

Andromeda Galaxy
2 million light-years

away in the constellation Ursa Major, but - binary star systems in which one star loses
also on closer objects. mass to the other
During 3,000 operating hours every year - condensing gas clouds and their chemical
for the next 15 years or more, scientists will composition
use the Hubble Space Telescope to study - the rings of Saturn and the swirling ultra-
- galaxies, especially active galaxies and violet clouds of Venus.
radio galaxies with very bright centers From their clearer, finer observations of
- pulsars, rapidly spinning neutron stars, these and other known points of light, scien-
like the one in the Crab Nebula tists expect to learn about the birth and death
- globular clusters, spherical groups of stars of stars and galaxies. And when, in the words
that orbit the center of our galaxy and of a NASA announcement from the 1970's,
may have black holes at their centers "in conscious expectation of the unexpected,"
- neighboring stars where planets may be they aim the telescope into the empty regions
forming, like one in the constellation Cygnus between, they may learn even more from the
- supergiant stars outside our galaxy darkness.
 Two high-gain antennas receive programmed
instructions from the Earth three times a day
and stream engineering and observation data
back, in the form of electronic signals, at a rate
of 1 million bits per second. The light shield keeps direct, light from the Sun
and reflected light from the Earth and Moon
away from the mirrors, because this stray light
would confound observations of faint objects.
Four reaction wheels move the telescope from one
target to another. Short pulses of electricity spin
these flywheels in one direction, nudging the Light from the appointed target enters
telescope, weightless in space, in the opposite the telescope through the aperture door.
direction.

Fine guidance sensors pinpoint the

telescope's target by fixing on pairs
"of guide stars in the outer part of
the telescope's field of view.

Two solar arrays, contributed by the

European Space Agency, charge the
telescope's batteries when the telescope
is on the Sun side of its Earth orbit.

Five scientific instruments in the aft shroud '

detect and measure light concentrated in the
focal plane behind a 26-inch hole in the / The equipment section houses the batteries, the
primary mirror. These instruments — *— communications system, the thermal control
cameras, two spectrographs, and a system, and the pointing and control system for
photometer. the telescope.
/
Three fixed head star trackers refine the
•^
telescope's position, commanding the
reaction wheels to adjust.

Three gyroscopes create a reference system for of the telescope and processes the data from
the telescope because there is no up or down, observations. It can be reprogrammed to
east or west in space. The gyroscopes sense modify procedures as scientists and engineer
when the telescope has reached its gain experience with the instruments,
programmed position and instruct it to hold.
Spacecraft Equipment
Systems
it for its ambitious mission, the Hubble The primary mirror, 94 inches across, is so The guidance system is so accurate and so
Space Telescope is an impressive smooth and so close to its perfect shape that, if stable that it pinpoints its target within 0.007
machine—a reflecting telescope carrying it were the size of the Earth, the peak of its arc second and can stay there for more than 10
the support systems it needs to work automati- greatest irregularity would be no more than hours. This accuracy is equivalent to hitting a
cally in space. At 43.5 feet long, 14 feet in 3 inches high. To make the surface this dime with a laser beam from 400 miles.
diameter, weighing 25,500 pounds, the Hubble smooth, 200 pounds of glass were polished When the target is fixed, the primary mirror
Space Telescope is the largest astronomical away, and to make the glass a mirror, it was collects light in the entire spectrum from ultra-
observatory ever placed in orbit. coated with aluminum so thin that, peeled violet to infrared and reflects it to the 13-inch
The major technological achievements at the away, it would float in the air like a mist. secondary mirror 15 feet in front of it. The
heart of the telescope are its nearly perfect But to achieve the clarity of image this secondary mirror reflects the light back
mirrors and its precise guidance system of rate extraordinary mirror is capable of, the tele- through the 26-inch hole in the primary mirror
gyroscopes, reaction wheels, star trackers, and scope must point accurately and stay on target to the five scientific instruments arrayed
fine guidance sensors. while it collects light from very faint objects. behind it.
Scientific Instruments
~| ight—from forming galaxies now the California Institute of Technology and the tion, will be one of the busiest instruments. It
I mature, from exploding stars now Jet Propulsion- Laboratory, is one instrument observes the spectra of extremely faint light
spent—focused by the Hubble Space with two functions. It surveys vast areas of sources and registers rapid variations in them.
Telescope's nearly perfect primary and second- deep space, and it takes vivid pictures of plan- The high-speed photometer, contributed by
ary mirrors, is beamed by pickoff mirrors to ets and other features of our Solar System. the University of Wisconsin, detects the small-
the five scientific instruments. The faint object camera, from the est objects that can- be observed with any of
For the clearest information from the most European Space Agency, detects the faintest the five instruments. It measures the intensity
sources, these instruments were chosen from objects visible to the space telescope. of light from sources in space and can register
among a dozen proposals solicited from the The high-resolution spectrograph, developed changes in brightness that occur as rapidly as
scientific community by the Goddard Space at Goddard and built by Ball Aerospace, every 10 microseconds.
Flight Center. observes only ultraviolet light. Its sensors are With these carefully chosen instruments,
The Hubble Space Telescope carries two deliberately insensitive to visible light. scientists will study light, old and faint, from
cameras; two spectrographs, the basic tool of The faint object spectrograph, developed by across space and time.
modern astronomy; and a photometer. scientists at the University of California at San
The wide field and planetary camera, from Diego and built by Martin Marietta Corpora-

Faint Object Camera

The faint object camera will detect white dwarf stars in the globular clusters
that orbit the center of the Milky Way. White dwarfs are stars that have
cooled and collapsed. Studying them will shed light on the evolution of stars.

I,
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•^•••w**
Wide Field and Planetary Camera
Scientists will use this instrument to study the nature of quasars. A quasar
\ —
emits 100 times more energy than a galaxy of 10 billion stars, and scien-
tists want to know why. Some theories suggest that quasars are galaxies
in a "sick" stage of evolution. As a wide field camera, this instrument
may prove this theory by showing that these bright points are surrounded
by the dimmer stars of a galaxy.
 Goddard High-Resolution Spectrograph
With this instrument, scientists will study the faint ultraviolet
emissions from very bright objects, such as the nuclei of
active galaxies, supernovas, and exploding galaxies. This
spectrograph may also reveal interstellar gas in regions where
it has not yet been detected; if it does, scientists will use this
information to test current models of cosmic evolution.

T 1 _

High-Spw
This instrument may prove the existence of bla
oretically, matter falling into a black hole will orbit the black
hole very quickly, emitting bursts of radiation in a character-
istic way. With the photometer, scientists may be able to
measure these bursts and prove that black holes exist.
V

Faint Object Spectrograph

Spectrograms of very distant galaxies taken with this instru-
ment will show the chemical composition of matter at an
early stage in the evolution of the universe and reveal how
galaxies were formed.
Integration and Test
irrors and fine guidance sensors into night every 95 minutes: + 50 to
from Perkin-Elmer, solar arrays —150 degrees Fahrenheit. And it survived the
from the European Space Agency, acoustic tests that simulate the stresses of
scientific instruments from their separate launch.
contributors—these critical pieces, and more, The Hubble Space Telescope, outfitted for its
were fit together into one spacecraft by mission to explore the evolving universe, is
Lockheed Missiles & Space Company. ready for its launch from the Space Shuttle
To protect the mirrors from dust that could Discovery.
scratch them, engineers and technicians,
dressed like surgeons, assembled the telescope
in a facility far cleaner than a hospital operat-
ing room. In the Vertical Assembly and Test
Area, a class 10,000 clean room, the air recy-
cles completely every 90 seconds so that it
contains no more than 10,000 dust particles
per cubic meter.
During assembly, not only had the mirrors
to be protected from contamination, but their
graphite epoxy support structure had to be
kept as dry as possible to preserve its delicate
alignment. For the clear images required of the
space telescope, its secondary mirror must be
aligned precisely in relation to the large pri-
mary mirror. However, earthbound materials
give off traces of water vapor when they enter
the vacuum of space, a phenomenon called
outgassing that subtly alters their size and
shape. To limit the effects of outgassing on the
size and shape of the support structure and,
therefore, on the alignment of the mirrors, the The acoustic test
support structure was baked dry during its simulator subjects the
construction. And it was protected from space telescope to the
absorbing water vapor during the assembly of vibrations of launch.
the space telescope by a method of continuous
dry purging. This dry purging during assembly
makes the telescope more stable for its obser-
vations.
Fully integrated, the Hubble Space Telescope
has been tested under conditions that simulate
launch and the space environment. In
Lockheed's thermal vacuum chamber, the tele-
scope endured the extremes of hot and cold it
will experience in its orbit, flying from day
 ^f .

Loren J. Shriver (USAF) Charles F. Bolden (USMC) Kathryn D. Sullivan

Commander Pilot Mission Specialist
Colonel Shriver holds a BS in Aero- Colonel Bolden's education includes a Dr. Sullivan has a BS in Earth Sciences
nautical Engineering and an MS in BS in Electrical Science and an MS in and a doctorate in Geology. The first
Astronautics. He was a test pilot at Systems Management. He is also a woman to perform an EVA, Dr. Sullivan
Edwards AFB when he was selected to graduate of the U.S. Naval Test Pilot is an EVA specialist on this mission.
be an astronaut. Colonel Shriver School and served as combat pilot in
flew as pilot on a previous Space Shuttle Vietnam. Colonel Bolden, pilot on a
mission. As commander on this mission, previous Space Shuttle mission carrying
he is responsible for all aspects of the scientific instruments, is pilot for the
flight and telescope deployment. Hubble Space Telescope mission.

Bruce McCandless, II (USN)

Mission Specialist
Captain McCandless has a BS from
the U.S. Naval Academy and an MS in
Electrical Engineering from Stanford
University. He was backup pilot for
Sky lab 2 and, as a mission specialist
on another Shuttle flight, he performed
the first free-flight EVA. On this mission,
he is an EVA specialist.
Steven A. Hawley
Mission Specialist
Dr. Hawley holds a BA in Physics and
Astronomy and a doctorate in Astron-
omy. Experienced as a mission specialist
on two previous flights, Dr. Hawley will
operate the Shuttle's mechanical arm to
deploy the Hubble Space Telescope.
 IP*!

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fir*~^-

"he thermal vacuum chamber simulates the The Vertical Assembly and Test Area is a
pace environment class 10,000 clean room

'he Hubble Space Telescope was

ssembled on a spacecraft built
y Lockheed Missiles & Space
iompany

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XI,
Space Shuttle Operations
t 380 miles above the Earth, the pilot to the telescope's systems. Then the arm will
will maneuver the Space Shuttle into swing the telescope into space and release it.
proper position, the cargo bay doors The solar arrays will unfold, the antennas
will open, and the Shuttle's mechanical arm will extend. Nearby, the Space Shuttle will
will raise the 43-foot telescope upright in the keep station for two orbits until ground con-
bay. Specially trained astronauts will power up trol at Marshall Space Flight Center determines
the telescope and check its systems. Mission that the telescope is working properly. Then
specialists, wearing space suits, may go out the Shuttle will leave and the Hubble Space
into the cargo bay to make final adjustments Telescope will begin collecting its first light.
Mission Operation
and Data Flow
ith planets and their moons and grammers write the second-by-second instruc- and the cameras and spectrographs have regis-
comets in our Solar System, with tions that point the telescope and keep it on tered the light from the appointed source,
200 billion stars in our galaxy, with target and that turn on and operate the scien- observations, in the form of electronic signals,
at least 100 billion galaxies in the universe, tific instruments. Observing time must be follow the same path back to Earth—from
decisions must be made—where will the Hub- planned carefully and programmed pointing telescope to relay satellite to ground. A ground
ble Space Telescope look and when? For the instructions must be precise because the tele- station at White Sands, New Mexico, receives
telescope's first year in operation, the Space scope moves constantly, orbiting the Earth all data and sends it by satellite relay to God-
Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Balti- every 95 minutes. dard Space Flight Center in Maryland. After
more, Maryland, has approved time for 162 At Goddard Space Flight Center, controllers Goddard ground controllers make certain that
observations from among 556 proposals. transmit the instructions to a Tracking and data has not been lost or corrupted, they send
To use the telescope most efficiently, STScI Data Relay Satellite (TDRS), which relays it on to the STScI where it is translated into
computers produce a long-range calendar that them to the space telescope's onboard formats that scientists can use. On a typical
schedules every approved observation. After computer. day, the STScI will receive enough data on the
an observation is scheduled, for example, of After the telescope has pinpointed the target, light from distant space to fill an encyclopedia.
the site of a 1961 supernova, computer pro- the mirrors have adjusted for clearest focus,

Goddard Space
Flight Center, MD
Space Telescope
Science Institute'
Johns Hopkins
Ground Station University, MD
White Sands, NM
 Maintenance and
Refurbishment
pecially designed to be maintained and replacement units (ORUs), that astronauts can ••'
refurbished in orbit, the Hubble Space replace in space. These include batteries, fine
_, Telescope will be visited by the Space guidance sensors, and solar arrays, which engi-
Shuttle every 5 years for routine service calls. neers expect
r to wear out in normal use, and
The telescope has 225 feet of handrails and the scientific instruments, which may be
31 foot restraints on its surface for the astro- replaced with more advanced ones during the
nauts to use during extravehicular activities » Hubble Space Telescope's 15-year mission to
(EVAs), and it has 70 parts, called orbital observe the evolving cosmos. ^

The crew members use simulators to practice rendezvousing with the

telescope, retrieving it, stowing it in the Shuttle cargo bay, and redeploying
it. In 1-g ground simulations, they also practice replacing telescope
hardware while the Hubble Space Telescope is in orbit. To simulate the
weightlessness they experience during EVAs, they train underwater with
mockups of the telescope and the ORUs.

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m
At Lockheed Missiles & Space Company in Sunnyvale, California, the Hubble Space Telescope is lowered during final preparation
for shipment to Kennedy Space Center.
The Hubble Space Telescope Team

NASA

The Office of Space Science and Applications, responsible for overall program
direction
Marshall Space Flight Center, responsible for overall HST project management, design
and development overview, and preparation for Hubble Space Telescope maintenance
and refurbishment mission
Goddard Space Flight Center, responsible for scientific instruments, mission operations,
and the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), which is operated by the Association
of Universities for Research in Astronomy at Johns Hopkins University
Johnson Space Center, responsible for the Space Shuttle and flight crew operations
Kennedy Space Center, responsible for Space Shuttle launch operations
European Space Agency, providing one scientific instrument and the solar arrays and
participating in the STScl

Space Telescope Contractors

Lockheed Missiles & Space Company, responsible for the design and development of
the support systems module, for Hubble Space Telescope systems integration, and for
systems engineering for Marshall Space Flight Center; and prime contractor for the
Mission Operations Control Center for Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt,
Maryland
Perkin-EImer, providing the optical telescope assembly

Scientific Instruments

High-speed photometer
Principal investigator Principal investigator
Prof J. A. Westphal Dr. R. C. Bless
California Institute of Technology University of Wisconsin
Contractor Contractor
Jet Propulsion Laboratory University of Wisconsin

Faint object spectrograph Faint object camera

Principal investigator Principal investigator
Dr. R. J. Harms Dr. F. D. Macchetto
University of California, San Diego European Space Agency
Contractor Contractors
Martin Marietta Dornier Systems, Matra, British Aerospace

Asfro/netry
Principal investigator Dr. W. H. Jefferys
Dr. J. C. Brandt University of Texas
Goddard Space Flight Center
Contractor
Ball Brothers
 «?•'•«•¥

iles & Space Compa*