more on Hubble Space Telescope Servicing Mission 4 and future cancelled.

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Delivered-To: dfarber+ () ux13 sp cs cmu edu
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 09:29:57 -0500
From: tim finin <finin () cs umbc edu>
Subject: Re: [IP] more on Hubble Space Telescope Servicing Mission 4 and future
 cancelled.
To: dave () farber net

Hubble is the lead story on today's Baltimore Sun front page.
The Hubble is important in Baltimore because of the Baltimore's
Space Telescope Science Institute and nearby Goddard Space Flight
Center. The story has a lot of information...

--

Hubble faces an early end to space role

Retirement of telescope result of Bush initiative; Planned 2006
tune-up canceled; NASA decision stuns institute in Baltimore
                
By Michael Stroh and Dennis O'Brien
Sun Staff, January 17, 2004

http://www.sunspot.net/news/health/bal-te.md.hubble17jan17,0,6373418,print.story

The Hubble Space Telescope, which revolutionized the study of the
cosmos and is considered one of the finest scientific instruments ever
constructed, will be forced into early retirement, NASA officials said
yesterday.

NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe told telescope managers and engineers
that he was scrubbing the final space shuttle flight that would have
installed new scientific instruments and replaced critical targeting
and power components.

His announcement, during a meeting at the Goddard Space Flight Center
in Greenbelt, came two days after President Bush ordered the space
agency to reallocate $11 billion from its five-year budget to focus on
sending humans to the moon and beyond.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration already had plans to
retire the Hubble in 2010. But without its scheduled 2006 tune-up,
which included the replacement of aging gyroscopes and batteries,
officials said the telescope might not last beyond 2007.

That would leave astronomers without a comparable instrument until the
more powerful James Webb Space Telescope is launched in 2011.

"People are devastated," said Steven V.W. Beckwith, director of the
Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, where 450 scientists,
engineers and other personnel coordinate Hubble research for
NASA. "This is the most prominent science facility in the world."

NASA officials said they didn't expect any immediate job losses at the
institute or at Goddard, which manages the spacecraft itself.

The space agency signed a $162.2 million contract last summer putting
the institute in charge of Webb Space Telescope research.

...

http://www.sunspot.net/news/health/bal-te.md.hubble17jan17,0,6373418,print.story

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