The fifth and final servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope, placed in orbit in 1990, took place during the STS-125 mission in May 2009. During the
“Trying to do stellar observations from Earth is like trying to do birdwatching from the bottom of a lake.” 13-day flight, the seven-member crew rendezvoused with and captured Hubble, conducted five complex spacewalks to service and upgrade the telescope, and redeployed it, giving it greater capabilities than ever before to help scientists unlock the secrets of the universe. The telescope continues to operate, far exceeding the five-year life extension expected from the servicing mission.
Left: In the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, workers lift Atlantis to mate it to its External Tank and Solid Rocket Boosters. Middle: Shuttles on two pads for the first launch attempt, Atlantis on Pad 39A, left, and Endeavour on Pad 39B. Right: Atlantis rolls back into the VAB.
Left: With space shuttle Endeavour in the foreground, space shuttle Atlantis takes off to begin the STS-125 fifth and final Hubble Servicing Mission. Middle: STS-125 Commander Scott D. Altman maneuvers Atlantis close to Hubble. Right: Hubble during the rendezvous maneuvers. Grunsfeld and Feustel conducted the first spacewalk of the mission on May 10, the flight’s fourth day. McArthur operated the RMS, as she did on all five spacewalks, using it to maneuver one of the spacewalkers perched on the Manipulator Foot Restraint at the end of the arm. After gathering their tools, Grunsfeld and Feustel completed the first major task by removing the Wide Field and Planetary Camera-2, installed during STS-61, the first servicing mission in 1993.
Grunsfeld and Feustel ventured outside again for the mission’s third spacewalk on May 16. Their first task involved removing the Corrective Optics Space Telescope Axial Replacement , installed during the first servicing mission to correct the mirror’s spherical aberration. Grunsfeld and Feustel easily removed COSTAR, stowing it in the payload bay, and replaced it with the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph instrument.
On Flight Day 8, Grunsfeld and Feustel exited the airlock for their third and the mission’s fifth and final spacewalk. They replaced a second battery and removed and replaced a Fine Guidance Sensor. Working about one hour ahead of the timeline, they had time to remove three degraded thermal blankets, replacing them with three new ones, before ending the final Hubble servicing spacewalk after seven hours and two minutes.
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