NASA Astronauts Start Repairs on Hubble Space Telescope

NASA's Space Shuttle Atlantis Launches on its mission to repair and replace parts of the Hubble Space Telescope. Image:NASA

Today’s nearly seven-hour spacewalk included the delicate replacement of Hubble’s Wide Field Planetary Camera 2. The new wide-field camera will allow Hubble to take larger, clearer, and more detailed images over a wider range of colors, than the previous wide-field camera did.

Crew from Atlantis carefully docked to the Hubble Space Telescope via the shuttle's robotic arm on Wednesday. A series of spacewalks are planned to repair and renew the aging telescope. Image: NASA

Other objectives include replacement of the Science Instrument Command and Data Handling Unit, the computer which helps send scientific data back to NASA, and the installation of three latch-over-center doors, which will aid the spacewalks taking place throughout the next several days.

Hubble's replacement parts. Bottom is the Data Handling Unit, Top is the Wide Field Planetary Camera 3. Image:NASA

According to NASA, the STS-125 Mission Priorities are as follows: