Apparently, rumors of the Hubble’s demise have been greatly exaggerated, as NASA announces Hubble repair mission (via CNN.com):
“We are going to add a shuttle servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope to the shuttle’s manifest to be flown before it retires,” Griffin told workers at Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland on Tuesday.Griffin’s announcement was greeted eagerly by astronomers who feared Hubble would deteriorate before the end of the decade without a mission to add new camera instruments, sensors and replace aging batteries.
Huzzah! While it is sad that we are still going to end up losing one of our greatest telescopes due to budgetary/transportation concerns, at least the Hubble will now have a fighting chance. The last mission will hopefully get the Hubble back to functioning 100%, and allow the Hubble to keep functioning until something replaces the Shuttles.
