Tag Archives: Hubble Space Telescope

Hubble Space Telescope 20 Years

NASA launched the Hubble Space Telescope on April 24th, 1990. Since then we’ve discovered things that we never even imagined, and seen light from distant galaxies and stars billions of years old.
Named for groundbreaking astronomer Edwin Hubble, the Hubble Space Telescope has helped astronomers prove the existence of black holes, dark energy, and defined the age of the universe.
NASA celebrates 20 years of amazing astronomical discoveries with the Hubble Space Telescope with an interactive showcase of incredible images of our universe.
NASA has also announced the extension of the Hubble Space Telescope Science Operations Contract through April [...]

Posted in Astronomy, NASA | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

NASA: Ten Years of Space Exploration

The past decade has been pretty exciting in the realm of space exploration. Here’s my look at NASA’s milestones in the past ten years.
NASA 2009 Year in Review
October 2009: water discovered on the moon by the LCROSS mission.
July 2009: 40th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing
May 2009: Hubble Space Telescope upgraded and repaired. Space walking astronauts from the Atlantis space shuttle gave the aging space telescope several new updated systems. Two new instruments, the Wide Field Camera 3 and Cosmic Origins Spectrograph were installed, while repairs were made to the Advanced Camera for Surveys and Space [...]

Posted in NASA, Space Exploration | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Atlantis repairs Hubble Space Telescope

The repairs made by the Atlantis Space Shuttle crew in their historic eleven day mission will enable the Hubble Space Telescope to see farther into our universe than ever before.  It was quite a ride for STS-125.

Five spacewalks extended Hubble’s lifespan until at least the year 2014
Replaced gyroscopes, batteries and science data transmitter
Increased the space telescope’s power 10 x 70 times
Installed new instruments (like the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph) and thermal blankets
Repaired two existing instruments

Some of the astronauts were blogging from space.  Mission specialist Mike Massimino is on Twitter as astro_mike.
More shuttle news at www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/

Posted in Astronomy, NASA, Space Exploration | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment