Hubble mission will be devilishly complex

Kelly Young for NewScientist.com news service

01 November 2006

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The space shuttle's final flight to upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope will be one of its most complex yet, featuring five spacewalks and some quick bolt changes usually reserved for the pit stops of car races.

On Tuesday, NASA announced to great fanfare that it would send a shuttle to service Hubble as early as May 2008. If the mission were successful, Hubble would have six working instruments for the first time since 1993 and would be able to do science until at least 2013, adding about five years to its professional lifetime.

"Looking back on the last four years, without reservation, today is my happiest day to be at the office," said Preston Burch, Hubble's mission manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, US.

The mission had been cancelled in 2004 because of safety risks to the shuttle crew