[background music]
You have now entered the Operations Support Room. This is
where engineers and specialists run tests before sending new
updates to Hubble. This ensures that these additions will not
cause anything unexpected to happen on the spacecraft. Today
engineers are testing potential changes to Hubble’s pointing
control system. This room is also used to figure out what’s
going on when the spacecraft isn’t operating as expected. The
behavior could be caused by a hardware failure, a strike from
a high-energy particle, a fluctuation in electrical
current, or something else. Once they know the cause, the team
figures out how to get the spacecraft back to normal
operations. As you look around the room, you’ll see a world map
on the large middle screen at the front. This shows engineers
whether Hubble is in sunlight or darkness, where it is with
respect to ground stations, and whether it is passing through a
high-radiation zone. Another large display on the left of the
front wall shows a ground-based image of what astronomical
object Hubble is scheduled to be looking at. This same display is
available to anyone on NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope website.
In the back of the room is a model of Hubble in the space
shuttle cargo bay. The model includes carriers that were
mounted in the cargo bay to carry new instruments,
spacecraft components, and astronaut tools during a
servicing mission. In fact, during these missions, this room
was fully staffed 24 hours a day, as engineers prepared
Hubble for the installation of new hardware.