Fresh from their successful space flight aboard Shuttle Columbia last month,
the seven astronauts who conducted the fourth servicing mission to the
orbiting Hubble Space Telescope will visit Goddard Space Flight Center next
Monday, April 15th.
The STS-109 crew of Commander Scott Altman, Pilot Duane Carey along with
Mission Specialists John Grunsfeld, Nancy Currie, Rick Linnehan, Jim Newman
and Mike Massimino will talk with GSFC employees from 2:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
in the Building 8 auditorium.
The presentation will include video and still images of the flight narrated
by the crew and an opportunity to answer questions from the audience.
News media who wish to attend the presentation on Monday should contact the
Goddard newsroom to arrange access and accreditation. A brief one-on-one
interview with a crew member may be possible if arranged in advance. The
Goddard PAO contact is Nancy Neal at (301) 286-0039.
During the STS-109 mission which flew March 1-12, 2002, the crew installed
new, more durable solar arrays, a new telescope power control unit, a new
reaction wheel assembly and a cooling system to restore the use of a key
infrared camera and spectrometer instrument which has been dormant since
1999. In addition, almost 12 years after it was launched, Hubble’s view of
the universe was dramatically improved with the addition of the newest
scientific instrument — The Advanced Camera for Surveys. With up to five
times the speed of previous instruments, this device is able to survey a
field of the cosmos twice as large as before with twice the resolution.
