Bird in the hand: In this image taken from NASA video, Hubble is captured by the space shuttle's robotic arm as Atlantis begins its mission to service the space telescope.
Credit: NASA
Today, Grunsfeld, 50, will lead the first of five spacewalks intended to extend the life of the space telescope. Joining him will be Drew Feustel, a 43-year-old geologist on his first space mission.
Officials believe the overhaul will extend operations at least five years, long enough to finish the development and launch a more capable successor, the James Webb Space Telescope.
During a six- to seven-hour spacewalk, the two men will replace the Wide Field Planetary Camera-2, a 16-year-old workhorse imager, with the updated Wide Field Camera-3. The new camera was designed to look deeper into the universe with observations in the ultraviolet and infrared regions of the electromagnetic spectrum.
A rejuvenated telescope
As their final task, Grunsfeld and Feustel, will replace the telescope's failing science computer. The Science Instrument Command and Data Handling system experienced a partial electronic failure in late September. The breakdown prompted NASA to postpone plans to launch the Hubble mission in October so engineers could prepare a replacement.
When the overhaul is complete, Hubble should have new batteries and gyroscopes, rejuvenating the electrical and pointing systems.
Hubble, a cooperative project between NASA and the European Space Agency, has been refurbished four times since its launch in 1990.
In Wednesday's rendezvous, Altman flew the final kilometre of the encounter manually, gingerly easing Atlantis closer to the telescope from below with the assistance of shuttle pilot Greg Johnson and Mike Good.
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