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STS-61
STS-61 was NASA's first Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission, and the fifth flight of the Space Shuttle Endeavour, Space Shuttle ''Endeavour''. The mission launched on December 2, 1993, from Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida. The mission restored the spaceborne observatory's vision (marred by spherical aberration in Hubble Space Telescope#Flawed mirror, its mirror) with the installation of a new main camera and a Corrective Optics Space Telescope Axial Replacement, corrective optics package (COSTAR). This correction occurred more than three and a half years after the Hubble was launched aboard STS-31 in April 1990. The flight also brought instrument upgrades and Solar panels on spacecraft, new solar arrays to the telescope. With its very heavy workload, the STS-61 mission was one of the most complex in the Shuttle's history. STS-61 lasted almost 11 days, and crew members made five spacewalks (extravehicular activity, extravehicular activities (EVAs)), an all-time recor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ken Bowersox
Kenneth Dwane "Sox" Bowersox (born November 14, 1956) is a United States Navy officer and former NASA astronaut. He is a veteran of five Space Shuttle launches and an extended stay aboard the International Space Station. When he launched on STS-73 at the age of 38 years and 11 months, he became the youngest person to command a Space Shuttle. Early life and education Bowersox was born November 14, 1956, in Portsmouth, Virginia, but considers Bedford, Indiana his home town. As a young boy, his family lived in Oxnard, California for seven years and he attended Rio Real Elementary School. Bowersox was active in the Boy Scouts of America, and is an Eagle Scout (Boy Scouts of America), Eagle Scout. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in aerospace engineering from the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, before receiving his commission in 1978. A year later, in 1979, he received a Master of Science degree in mechanical engineering from Columbia University in New York C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Claude Nicollier
Claude Nicollier (born 2 September 1944) is the first astronaut from Switzerland. He has flown on four Space Shuttle missions. His first spaceflight ( STS-46) was in 1992, and his final spaceflight ( STS-103) was in 1999. He took part in two servicing missions to the Hubble Space Telescope (called STS-61 and STS-103). During his final spaceflight he participated in a spacewalk, becoming the first European Space Agency astronaut to do so during a Space Shuttle mission (previous ESA astronauts conducted spacewalks aboard '' Mir'', see List of spacewalks and moonwalks 1965–1999). In 2000 he was assigned to the Astronaut Office Extravehicular Activity Branch, while maintaining a position as Lead ESA Astronaut in Houston. Nicollier retired from ESA in April 2007. He was appointed full professor of Spatial Technology at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne on 28 March 2007. He was an expert board member of Swiss Space Systems, until the company's dissolution. Early li ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Akers
Thomas Dale Akers (born May 20, 1951) is a former American astronaut in NASA's Space Shuttle program. Education Akers was the valedictorian of his 29-member 1969 senior class from Eminence, Missouri. He worked summers as a park ranger in the 80,000 acre federal wilderness that borders Eminence. He graduated from the Missouri University of Science and Technology, University of Missouri-Rolla (now the Missouri University of Science and Technology) with Bachelor of Science, B.S. and Master's degree, M.S. degrees in applied mathematics in 1973 and 1975, respectively. At the age of 24, he returned to Eminence to become its math teacher, and subsequently its high school principal. In 1979, when a United States Air Force recruiter left brochures on his desk for his students, it was Akers who decided to sign up. He was selected for the astronaut program in 1987 and officially became an astronaut in 1988. As part of his training with NASA, Akers taught science classes at Troy Univer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Story Musgrave
Franklin Story Musgrave (born August 19, 1935) is an American physician and a retired NASA astronaut. He is a public speaker and consultant to both Disney's Imagineering group and Applied Minds in California. In 1996, he became only the second astronaut to fly on six spaceflights, and he is the most formally educated astronaut with six academic degrees along with astronaut Lee Morin. Musgrave is the only astronaut to have flown aboard all five Space Shuttles. Early life Musgrave was born August 19, 1935, the son of Percy Musgrave Jr. (1903–1973) and Marguerite Warton Musgrave (née Swann; 1909–1982). He grew up in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, but considers Lexington, Kentucky, to be his hometown. Musgrave has strong New England ancestral roots, descending from ''Mayflower'' passengers John Howland and John Tilley, as well as early Watertown, Massachusetts, settler Richard Saltonstall. Saltonstall's uncle was Richard Saltonstall, Lord Mayor of London. His 4th great-grand ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
STS-82
STS-82 was the 22nd flight of the Space Shuttle Space Shuttle Discovery, ''Discovery'' and the 82nd mission of the Space Shuttle program. It was NASA's second mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope, during which ''Discovery's'' crew repaired and upgraded the telescope's scientific instruments, increasing its research capabilities. ''Discovery'' launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on February 11, 1997, returning to Earth on February 21, 1997, at Kennedy Space Center. Crew ''Discovery'' was crewed by a seven person team for the STS-82 mission. Spacewalks *''EVA 1'' Lee and Smith **Start: February 14, 1997 – 04:34 UTC **End: February 14, 1997 – 11:16 UTC **Duration: 6 hours, 42 minutes *''EVA 2'' Harbaugh and Tanner **Start: February 15, 1997 – 03:25 UTC **End: February 15, 1997 – 10:52 UTC **Duration: 7 hours, 27 minutes *''EVA 3'' Lee and Smith **Start: February 16, 1997 – 02:53 UTC **End: February 16, 1997 – 10:04 UTC **Duration: 7 hours, 11 minute ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hubble Space Telescope
The Hubble Space Telescope (HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the Orbiting Solar Observatory, first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most versatile, renowned as a vital research tool and as a public relations boon for astronomy. The Hubble Space Telescope is named after astronomer Edwin Hubble and is one of NASA's Great Observatories program, Great Observatories. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) selects Hubble's targets and processes the resulting data, while the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) controls the spacecraft. Hubble features a mirror, and its five main instruments observe in the ultraviolet, visible spectrum, visible, and near-infrared regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. Hubble's orbit outside the distortion of atmosphere of Earth, Earth's atmosphere allows it to capture extremely high-resolution images with substantially lower background lig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
STS-49
STS-49 was NASA's maiden flight of the Space Shuttle ''Endeavour'', which launched on May 7, 1992. The primary goal of its nine-day mission was to retrieve an Intelsat VI satellite, Intelsat 603, which failed to leave Low Earth orbit two years before, attach it to a new upper stage, and relaunch it to its intended geosynchronous orbit. After several attempts, the capture was completed with the only three-person extravehicular activity (EVA) in space flight history. It would also stand until STS-102 in 2001 as the longest EVA ever undertaken. Crew Spacewalks ;EVA 1 * Personnel: Thuot and Hieb * Date: May 10–11, 1992 (20:40–00:23 UTC) * Duration: 3 hours, 43 minutes ;EVA 2 * Personnel: Thuot and Hieb * Date: May 11–12, 1992 (21:05–02:35 UTC) * Duration: 5 hours, 30 minutes ;EVA 3 * Personnel: Thuot, Hieb and Akers * Date: May 13–14, 1992 (21:17–05:46 UTC) * Duration: 8 hours, 29 minutes ;EVA 4 * Personnel: Thornto ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Space Shuttle Program
The Space Shuttle program was the fourth human spaceflight program carried out by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which accomplished routine transportation for Earth-to-orbit crew and cargo from 1981 to 2011. Its official program name was Space Transportation System (STS), taken from a 1969 plan for a system of reusable spacecraft where it was the only item funded for development, as a proposed nuclear shuttle in the plan was cancelled in 1972. It flew 135 missions and carried 355 astronauts from 16 countries, many on multiple trips. The Space Shuttle, composed of an Space Shuttle orbiter, orbiter launched with two reusable Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Booster, solid rocket boosters and a disposable external fuel tank, carried up to eight astronauts and up to of payload into low Earth orbit (LEO). When its mission was complete, the orbiter would atmospheric reentry, reenter the Earth's atmosphere and land like a glider (aircraft), glider at either ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
STS-31
STS-31 was the 35th mission of NASA's Space Shuttle program and the tenth flight of the Space Shuttle ''Discovery''. The primary purpose of this mission was the deployment of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) into low Earth orbit. ''Discovery'' lifted off from Launch Complex 39B on April 24, 1990, from Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Following the Challenger accident clarification was required on mission numbering. As STS-51-L was also designated STS-33, future flights with the previous STS-26 through STS-33 designators would require the R in their documentation to avoid conflicts in tracking data from one mission to another. ''Discovery''s crew deployed the Hubble Space Telescope on April 25, 1990, and then spent the rest of the mission tending to various scientific experiments in the Shuttle's payload bay as well as operating a set of IMAX cameras to record the mission. ''Discovery''s launch marked the first time since January 1986 that two Space Shuttles had been on the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Corrective Optics Space Telescope Axial Replacement
The Corrective Optics Space Telescope Axial Replacement (COSTAR) is an Corrective lens, optical correction instrument designed and built by NASA. It was created to correct the spherical aberration of the Hubble Space Telescopes primary mirror, which incorrectly focused light upon the Faint Object Camera (FOC), Faint Object Spectrograph (FOS), and Goddard High Resolution Spectrograph (GHRS) instruments. It was flown via shuttle to the telescope in the servicing mission STS-61, on December 2, 1993, and successfully installed over a period of eleven days. Origin Once it had been identified in 1990 that the primary mirror in the recently launched Hubble Space Telescope (HST) was defective due to it having been ground to the wrong shape, engineers at NASA came under immense pressure to fix the problem. The incorrect shape of the mirror introduced severe spherical aberration, a flaw in which light reflecting off the edge of a mirror focus (optics), focuses on a different point from t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Space Shuttle Endeavour
Space Shuttle ''Endeavour'' (Orbiter Vehicle Designation: OV-105) is a retired Space Shuttle orbiter, orbiter from NASA's Space Shuttle program and the fifth and final operational Space Shuttle, Shuttle built. It embarked on its first mission, STS-49, in May 1992 and its 25th and final mission, STS-134, in May 2011. STS-134 was expected to be the final mission of the Space Shuttle program, but with the authorization of STS-135 by the United States Congress, Space Shuttle Atlantis, ''Atlantis'' became the last shuttle to fly. The United States Congress approved the construction of ''Endeavour'' in 1987 to replace the Space Shuttle Challenger, Space Shuttle ''Challenger'', which was Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, destroyed in 1986. NASA chose, on cost grounds, to build much of ''Endeavour'' from spare parts rather than refitting the Space Shuttle Enterprise, Space Shuttle ''Enterprise'', and used structural spares built during the construction of ''Space Shuttle Discovery, Di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39B
Launch Complex 39B (LC-39B) is the second of Launch Complex 39's three launch pads, located at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Merritt Island, Florida. The pad, along with Launch Complex 39A, was first designed for the Saturn V launch vehicle, which at the time was the United States' most powerful rocket. Typically used to launch NASA's crewed spaceflight missions since the late 1960s, the pad is currently configured for use by the agency's Space Launch System rocket, a Shuttle-derived launch vehicle which is currently used in the Artemis program and subsequent Moon to Mars campaigns. The pad had also been leased by NASA to aerospace company Northrop Grumman, for use as a launch site for their Shuttle-derived OmegA launch vehicle, for National Security Space Launch flights and commercial launches, before the OmegA program was cancelled. History Apollo program In 1961, President Kennedy proposed to Congress the goal of landing a man on the Moon by the end of the decade. Congre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
