Special Tools Required For Last Call To Hubble

canada goose outlet uk sale The right tools can make any job easier, and that will be especially true this week when the Hubble Space Telescope gets its last tuneup. canada goose outlet uk sale

When space shuttle Atlantis blasts off Monday on the final flight to Canada Goose Online Hubble, the astronauts will be carrying 180 special tools, and 116 of them were designed just for this mission, which involves tricky repairs to two science instruments that were never intended to be http://www.mycanadagoosejacket.org fixed in space. EDT.

canada goose jacket outlet „Over the last few years, we’ve seen significant deterioration within the set of scientific instruments that we provide to the astronomical community,” says David Leckrone, senior project scientist for Hubble at NASA. canada goose uk canada goose jacket outlet

canada goose outlet black friday He says that after this visit, if all goes well, Hubble should be more powerful than ever before. canada goose outlet black friday

Astronauts are scheduled to go on five spacewalks to give the telescope an upgrade that includes new batteries and gyroscopes, and Canada Goose sale additional science instruments.

canada goose outlet reviews But some of the most ambitious repair work involves „actually going into the very guts of instruments that have suffered failures that were canada goose never meant to be touched on orbit,” says Michael Weiss, deputy program manager buy canada goose jacket cheap for Hubble at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. canada Canada Goose Coats On Sale goose Canada Goose Outlet outlet reviews

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canada goose outlet online The astronauts will have to open up two instruments and replace electronics cards. Taking off the cover of one instrument, a spectrograph, uk canada goose outlet involves unscrewing 111 tiny screws. canada goose outlet online

goose outlet canada Weiss says a regular power drill from a hardware store wouldn’t work in space. „Radiation would get cheap canada goose uk it, the Zero G would get it, the temperature extremes would get it,” Weiss says. „It just wouldn’t work in the space environment.” goose outlet canada

canada goose outlet in usa So for years, buy canada goose jacket astronauts have used a special power tool in space. NASA engineers have designed a smaller, faster version of it for this mission. canada goose outlet in usa

Even though losing a few screws isn’t a big deal when you’re assembling a bookcase at home, in space it is potentially a serious problem. A wayward screw could float up into the telescope and cause damage.

canada goose outlet nyc „So we have to figure out a way for the astronaut to remove these screws but not let them float away in space,” explains Jill McGuire, who heads the team at Goddard that designs tools for Hubble. „You can’t, you know, hold a little tiny screw like this with a big astronaut glove on.” canada goose outlet nyc

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official canada goose outlet McGuire’s team solved the problem by canada goose uk black friday designing a „fastener capture plate.” It looks like a colorful busy board that toddlers might play with. official canada goose outlet

It’s designed to Canada Goose online fit exactly over the panel that needs to be canada goose clearance sale removed. Once it’s on, the screws will be covered by little plastic boxes, or bubbles. There’s a tiny hole above canada goose uk outlet each screw, for the astronaut to insert the screwdriver.

„The bit can actually get through the hole, to access canadian goose jacket the fastener head, but the fastener cannot get back out through the canada goose factory sale hole,” McGuire explains. The captured screws simply float in canada goose coats on sale the little compartments. They canada goose uk shop don’t have to be screwed back in, because the old instrument cover will be replaced with a snap on one.

Tools For ‚What If’ Scenarios

canada goose black friday sale Many of the tools in canada goose black friday sale the astronauts’ tool kits were developed for scenarios that might not even happen. canada goose black friday sale

canada goose outlet For example, the astronauts will replace batteries that have been up there since 1990. Ben Kennedy, an engineer who works with the tool team, developed a battery extraction tool, in case those batteries are stuck and the astronauts can’t just pull them off. canada goose outlet

canada goose outlet store Of course, if the batteries come off easily, the astronauts won’t ever use the tool. canada goose outlet store

„I think I hope that they don’t have to use it,” Kennedy says. „It’s stowed in such a configuration canada goose clearance in the shuttle that I think it will be visible in a couple of pictures, and I’ll just be happy enough with that.”

canada goose outlet new york city If all the repairs and upgrades go well, Hubble should be more powerful than ever, and will be able to take beautiful pictures of the canada goose outlet universe until at least 2014. canada goose outlet new york city

After that, if the telescope breaks, it won’t be repaired, says Edward Weiler, head of NASA’s science mission directorate.

canada goose outlet uk He says NASA is getting ready to retire the space shuttle program, so there won’t be a vehicle that can go to Hubble, and the agency isn’t building new spare parts for the Hubble Space Telescope. canada goose outlet uk

„Nothing is being built for further servicing,” Weiler says, „because to spend money on that would mean we wouldn’t be able to build the next generation telescopes.”

canada goose outlet jackets And during this last visit to Hubble, astronauts will install a little mechanism that will allow a robotic spacecraft to capture Hubble at the end of its life and send it de orbiting down toward the Pacific Ocean canada goose outlet jackets.