♪♪
-We have a good image.
1...2...
3...4...5.
-And this unique camera angle
is basically looking over the shoulder of Mike Foale
as he begins the process of opening the door.
This is bay one, again, just above
and to the right of the location
where the Rate Sensor Units were changed yesterday.
-Two feet to your right.
-Two feet.
-Inside, behind that door is
the Hubble Space Telescope's computer,
not seen since December of 1993 when a coprocessor was added
to the existing computer on the first servicing mission.
-Both end face sides secure.
-Five turns.
-3...4...5.
-And as the door opens,
keep an eye on what's inside if you can.
And there's going to be no PRT changes.
[ Both talking indistinctly ]
-Five of six bolts done.
-Okay, now remove the old top.
-Correct. Mike, did the door stay shut?
-Okay, Steve, I'd like to have a go ahead
with disconnecting the Discovery,
want to verify we're a go for a 224 connector demate.
-Then you have a go for for 224 connector demate.
-I copy, Steve. -Okay.
[ Speaking indistinctly ]
-Okay, P3 is disconnected.
And the pins are in good condition.
-Okay, we copy, all the connectors
have been removed from the 224, and all the pins look good.
-That's correct, Steve.
-Okay, I got it transferred on the other side of the arm,
on your right side, Mike.
-I copy.
-Time for -- It took me --
Actually, you need to transfer to primary.
-Copy, and the sun's is going down.
-Curt, can I move the arm out, so I can move it?
-You can move it out without a problem.
-Okay.
-Nice and slow, take me out from the telescope.
-Out, nice and slow.
-About 5 feet. -About 5 feet.
-That's good.
-And Claude, I'm going to raise about 2 or 3 feet
above your head, so you need to stay low.
Over the arm, we'd appreciate it.
-Thank you, sir.
-Thank you.
-And Mike Foale is now basically disconnecting the bolts
that are holding the entire computer to the work site.
All of the connectors have been demated
or disconnected from the computer,
and as Foale was disconnecting each one,
he would take a hard look at them
to make sure the pins were in good shape,
as those connectors will be mated to the new computer
in an identical fashion,
only in reverse of what he's doing now.
-Six inches. I have about --
-I have the -- in my hands.
-Okay.
-It seems to be free. It is free.
-Need to move out a little bit more.
-I concur.
-Jean-François, if you could bring us out
from the telescope roughly 4 feet.
-Four feet up. -Out. Out.
-And there it is, Mike Foale
now pulling the old computer out of the telescope
at the 1-hour, 9-minute mark of the space walk.
-Okay.
And stop.
-Okay.
-Hold on.
-I have it.
Primary side secured that are on the side of the computer.
-Okay, you have the DF-224. -I have the 224.
-All right, John, do I have a go to close up the door?
-Yes, you do, release the door,
and PRT should be set 83 clockwise 10.
-Okay, the door stays released.
-Just to heads up, if it's, like, phase two and three,
you may have to push rather hard to get that first J bolt over.
-I copy.
-John Grunsfeld lending his expertise
in what he experienced yesterday in two other work sites.
-Okay, Jean-François, can you take me to my right,
please, about 1 foot, and then in 1 foot?
-Okay, in and right 1 foot. -That's correct.
-Beautiful view of Mike Foale's reflection in the telescope
as he prepares now to close out that work site.
-And drop in, drop in.
Bring me down 2 feet. One foot. -Down 1 foot.
-Stop. -Stop.
-I'm going to start on the top-left corner this time.
-Top-left corner. -Yeah.
-Moving now.
-I have about 4 feet.
Bring me straight in to the telescope.
-Straight in.
-Sunset in 2 minutes.
-Thank you.
-Copy. Forward.
-Step the in. -Stepping.
-Take me to my left about 8 inches please, Jean-François.
-Eight inches. -Yep.
-Stop. -Stop.
-I'm on my way, Mike. -Okay.
-Mike and Claude, we're rotating the telescope.
-And the Hubble Space Telescope rotation,
90-degree rotation, is underway.
Again, this is to present the next work site
facing towards the crew compartment
so that it is within reach of the shuttle's robotic arm.
With one of the two spacewalking astronauts there a moment ago
at the bottom of the telescope, it served
as a very good reference for the size of the telescope,
as it stands about four stories out of Discovery's payload bay.
-It's got enough friction between the material
and the handrail, so they will slide very easy.
-Did you also see what I was talking about,
that the velcro would overlap.
-Yeah. But it's adequate. It's enough.
-Space walk by Mike Foale and Claude Nicollier
now 4 hours and 7 minutes in duration.
At present Nicollier is attaching the handhold that --
Or they're demating the connectors in preparation
for attaching the handhold that will assist him
in pulling the Fine Guidance Sensor out of the telescope.
The Fine Guidance Sensor that will be installed
in the telescope is one that was refurbished.
It was actually returned to Earth
from the last servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope.
It's now been refurbished
and is patiently awaiting to be installed in the telescope
in place of this Fine Guidance Sensor once it's removed.
-[ Speaking indistinctly ]
I could use what I was planning to use.
-Mission control, he'll be happy Mike used that technique.
-Yes, I'm grateful to Greg Havel for briefing me on that.
-Jean-François, take me out 1 foot.
-Out 1 foot.
-And this, a very nice close-up view,
right over the shoulder of Claude Nicollier
as he now has attached
the handhold to the Fine Guidance Sensor.
All of the connectors now have been removed.
Grounding straps have been removed, as well.
-I'm ready to go.
-Got the controller off for four.
-At the same time going out.
-Very nice, Claude. Very nice.
-Mirror on the end.
-Perfect.
Continue up and out.
-Up and out. -Very nice, Claude.
Really smooth. Very good.
Absolutely straight.
It's perfect.
Absolutely perfect.
-A little more up, Jean-François.
-Moving up and out. -About 2 more inches.
-Two more inches up.
-That's perfect. It's absolutely level.
-I'm about 3 foot to it now, the mirror on the telescope.
-Okay, now, why don't we keep --
keep an eye on Claude here.
Claude, you have a go? -Okay.
-Claude, you moved that so well
I don't believe you need to do this.
[ Laughter ]
-I need one more foot out
as you continue the rest of the motion.
-One more foot out. -Correct.
-Up about 1 foot.
A continual motion.
-Okay. One more foot up now.
-One more up now.
-And wrap that up. -Correct.
Mike, you can check on the orbit lid latch there
while you pass it.
-Okay.
Okay, I have --
-Okay. Boot plate back to zero.
-Okay.
-Okay, Claude,
I need you to come about 2 feet -- no, 3 feet up.
-Okay. 3 feet up. 3 feet up.
-5 hours, 14 minutes into the space walk now.
We're looking at Mike Foale with the broken red strip
on the pant legs of his suit on the left,
and Claude Nicollier with the broken dashed red stripe
on the pant legs of his suit the foot restraint
on the end of the shuttle's robot arm.
Presenting the forward portion of the Fine Guidance Sensor
to his colleague, Mike Foale,
Claude Nicollier will then very carefully
install the new Fine Guidance Sensor on the rails,
and that will then slide into place
into the Hubble Space Telescope.
-Keep moving up.
-Stop now. Stop.
-All right, Claude.
Secure up or down to get over there.
-Up. -Up.
-I think we're all -- Okay, we're past it.
We're past it.
-It's good, yeah. -It's very good, yeah.
No, we've got it. We've got it.
-We've got it, yep.
-Okay, you have it. You have the rest of it.
-Yep. -Great job, guys.
-Yeah, I think it was a yaw problem.
-Jean-François, put me back to the middle.
-Back to the center.
-And then please continue the normal way now.
Do you agree? -I concur, yeah.
-Can you move about 16?
-Move about 16.
-More?
-No, that's good.
-Hey, Mike, verify on all three latches,
you turned the little tip-in thing, too?
-Yeah, that's an affirmative, Steve.
The three latches are closed,
and the tip-in thing is engaged on each of them.
-Okay. Let's go back and do the HST PSR.
-Okay, I'm on my way.
-Claude, move it in.
-Hey, Claude, if you could use the side servo,
I think that'd be good. -Okay. I will.
♪♪
-John, another beautiful day outside.
-Christmas Eve working on the Hubble Space Telescope.
-Yeah, the safety control is filled in,
closed, and everything is secure.
-Okay.
-You can present the other end of it to me.
-Okay.
-The other end.
-Oh, like that? -Yeah, there we go.
-Okay. -You're tethered to it still?
-I'm still tethered to it. -Yeah, I've got it.
-Okay.
-Don't go up any higher. -Okay, I won't.
-I see that.
-So, I propose no change unless you go up there.
-Okay.
-Quick look at us.
-It's a beautiful view of Discovery
with the Hubble Space Telescope in the background.
In the foreground, payload commander Steve Smith,
now on his fifth space walk of his career as an astronaut --
Three on the second Hubble servicing mission,
and now the second one on this flight.
Discovery midway across the Pacific Ocean
on the 73rd orbit of its mission.
Smith, along with his colleague John Grunsfeld,
are wrapping up the setup for today's space walk, again,
scheduled to last about 7 hours.
-The biometric cable is connected to the --
-Okay. I need to do that.
Thank you.
I'm going back out.
-And, Steve, I propose you place the thermal cover
-Okay.
Absolutely.
-And, Steve, before you leave the area,
make sure the thermal cover is closed.
-Verified closed. -And I see it closed.
-And, John, are you ready to move to
the PSR storage location?
-Affirmative.
-Okay, John.
-Houston, Discovery, we are now complete with daily setup.
-And we copy, Discovery.
-Mike Foale notifying mission control here
that the daily setup is completed.
All of the tasks associated with preparing for today's activities
are complete.
And, again, the two crew members working today,
John Grunsfeld on the end of the remote manipulator system,
the robotic arm...
...and Steve Smith, the free-floating astronaut,
while over their shoulders down below, Discovery
is passing high above the Yucatan Peninsula
on the 73rd orbit of the mission.
And now a beautiful view of the Florida Peninsula
as Discovery passes to the south.
-John, is the other end of your tether --
-I have it. -You've got it?
-Am I clear? -You're all clear.
Jean-François, you can start pitching me up.
-Okay, I will put you in the --
and also the X.
-Okay. -Mike, just so you know,
the white cloth is secure
on the NFR stowage bracket.
-I copy.
-Okay, you're clear to cross and come up.
-Hello, Hubble.
-And, Steve, watch your tether rail
in relation to the telescope as you go up.
-Okay.
-Okay, I'm starting on 45 right and...
heading to 30 left.
-Jean-François, I think you can cam me up just a little bit.
-Yes, just a bit more up. I agree.
-Concur.
Okay, I'm now aft of the trunnion.
You can come towards the telescope,
I'm still about 6 feet away.
-Copy, towards the telescope.
-And I see the solar -- Mike.
-I copy, Steve, and can I recommend
that you always be positively tethered
to the telescope as much as you can.
-You can definitely recommend that. [ Chuckles ]
-Okay, no more aft.
-No more.
Just the Y now.
-Concur.
-And then we can use some roll left.
-Okay, somebody --
-Yeah. Yeah.
-Thank you.
-In the top hole here,
and I'll give you the connector tool back.
That's fully extended.
-I concur.
-Okay, and that one is left.
I now have the connector tool.
-You've got it? -Yep.
-Okay, if you can push the door open.
-Coming open.
-And now the battery movers are below me.
-Yep.
-I've never had this view of the APU steam vents before.
-Yeah [ Chuckles ]
-Very good view, gentleman.
-These are close-out photos,
documenting the work that the two crew members
just completed in this as part of the space walk,
and as we heard Steve Smith, the free-floating astronaut,
hanging onto the telescope,
one of the telescope's handrails,
looking back at the tail of Discovery
and jokingly commenting
that he's never had this particular view
of the APU steam vents.
Those steam vents for the auxiliary power units
of the shuttle are located on either side
of the vertical tail of Discovery.
-Relax your grip now, and we're going to get a view face on.
-Okay.
To do that I'm going to have to --
-We have a nice view of Steve.
-Okay, I'll have to turn my foot plate to do that.
-Okay.
Do you want me to hold the camera?
-Yeah, that's probably the best.
-And this is Mission Control Houston,
close-up view looking straight over the shoulder,
the right shoulder, of John Grunsfeld
as he works on the change-out
of the S-Band single access transmitter,
one of the two transmitters onboard
the Hubble Space Telescope.
This is a very good view of the cables that
John Grunsfeld is working with, and the size of those cables.
They're a bit smaller than the standard coaxial cable
that you hook to the back of your television set,
but the connector itself is essentially the same.
It requires a tool to loosen those connectors,
and that's what he's doing at this time
is disconnecting those cables from the failed transmitter,
which is located on the door of bay five.
-Feels funny to let go of a tool,
even though you know it's tethered.
Okay, I have the old SSAT in my hand.
-Good job, John, you've got all the washers, too.
-Yep.
-And we copy. Well done.
-Okay, I'm just going to take a peek
in each of these inputs.
They all look pretty reasonable.
Still need to -- Okay, that is good.
-I've got the box. -Okay.
-We'll do that.
-You can mount the other one first if you want.
It's up to you. -That's a good idea.
Let me do that. -Okay.
-I'll get a couple of those in before I let go of it.
Okay, all of them have been hand tightened,
or rotated three times once they were released.
-We copy, John.
We're expecting three more. -Okay.
-Three more times, I mean, with the tool.
-It'll be a little hard to predict,
just because I can't really tell when it starts threading,
but I'll let you know how many turns it goes.
-Okay.
-Coming up, John. -Okay.
-And, Steve, bear with me,
as a reminder, but as you work on this,
try not to let your legs go up at all.
-Mike, I'm retrieving the J harness
and starting the T harness.
-I copy, Steve.
-I can see the J harness is nicely tethered to me.
-And shall I start going down slowly.
-Take me to the cope. -Copy to the cope.
Steve, John is coming down above you.
He's got about 10 feet to go. -Okay.
I'll be ready for you in 1 minute.
-Okay. No rush.
-So, you could enjoy the moment for a second.
In the task, reviewed the end effector.
-Yeah. Work station.
Your right waist tether will work.
-Okay. I concur.
-If you can grab your right waist tether...
...on your work station center.
-Yep.
[ Both speaking indistinctly ]
-Okay. I'm ready to take the old box.
I've got the old box.
And I'll meet you up there.
-Okay. Jean-François, pick me back up to bay side, please.
-To bay side.
-John Grunsfeld now has the new solid-state recorder,
a 25-pound piece of equipment,
and he's now being maneuvered back up to the work site
by Jean-François Clervoy,
operating the shuttle's mechanical or robotic arm.
-Steve, this time, you're going to close three latches.
-Copy.
-Oh. Look how fragile it is.
-Yeah.
I see that we're flying over the NASA Keck One
and Keck Two telescopes.
-Is that right?
-I don't want to lean back. -Don't lean back.
-That one folded up a lot nicer.
-Good.
-Just get it started here for us.
-Okay.
-Send my tether up. -Okay.
-Stand by.
Go all the way.
- Discovery, Houston?
-Houston, go ahead.
-Good SSS AT aliveness test.
-That's good news. Thank you very much.
-Good job, John. -Thank you.
-Thank you, Linda.
-You're welcome.
-You're clear. -Okay.
-Back up close to the node.
-The third space walk of this flight
to the Hubble Space Telescope, now 6 hours in duration,
with Steve Smith headed back up the telescope
with a new outer blanket layer for Bay 9,
another section of the telescope.
Bay 9 houses the reaction wheel assemblies
for the Hubble Space Telescope, and again these outer blankets
have been fashioned on the ground
to be easily installed
in order to protect the equipment
inside these work sites from thermal extremes
that the telescope experiences during its orbit of the Earth.
-Hi, Steve. -Yes, sir?
-We see the C channel right now.
Can you tell us what you're pointing to?
-Here is the Bay 9 NOBL.
Can you see my finger? -Yes.
-And this is the white wire that used to be
on the telescope right there.
And these are the two clips
to the Bay 8 lower and upper patches.
-We copy, and we have a good recording of it.
-Okay. And there's the man who did OCE, SSAT, and SSR today.
-Gary, we have a great view.
-[ Chuckles ]
All right, let's go to the air lock. Be careful.
-Just wanted to point out that in the last 3 days,
we put 13 new boxes in the Hubble Space Telescope
with 100% success,
and we appreciate greatly the great folks
who are working on this holiday, this special Christmas Eve 1999.
More importantly, though, I just want to point out to our country
and the world that we've been working on Hubble
for about 10 years now,
and the team across the nation and around the world
has been working very hard for this last year in particular
to prepare this hardware
and this seven-member crew to fix this telescope.
We're all incredibly proud to be part of that team.
We want to thank in particular the great team at NASA
and all its contractors that are working on Hubble at Goddard,
at Johnson Space Center and down at the Kennedy Space Center.
Overview, we've gotten to know some of you or haven't.
You're all very special, though.
Every time Hubble returns some magnificent science,
we hope that you take the great pleasure
that we do when we hear
that the information that Hubble is returning
is making us a lot smarter, and it's making our lives better,
and it's making the lives of our children a lot better.
So, congratulation to everyone at NASA and the contractor team.
Our country and the world should be very proud of you.
John, I, and Mike, and Claude have spent 3 special days
in some special spaceships out here
that we call the extravehicular mobility unit,
and John would like to say a word about that.
-Well, of course, there was the space shuttle,
which is an incredible machine that got us up here.
And once we got up here, Mike Foale, Claude Nicollier,
Steve Smith, and myself
got to get into our own space suits,
our own spaceship, and orbit around Earth,
and these are incredible machines
and they allowed us to fix the Hubble Space Telescope.
We'd sincerely like to thank all those folks
at the Johnson Space Center, at Hamilton Sundstrand,
over at Boeing,
and all the various subcontractors
that contributed to these great space suits
and all the tools that we use.
We had over 500 piece parts out here to do our jobs,
the tools, and of course, all the training
that that we had to do at our large swimming pool,
the Neutral Buoyancy facility.
Without that large team, this couldn't have happened.
I know I feel especially privileged,
as do all the crew members on board,
and personally, as an astronomer,
as are Mike and Claude Nicollier,
to have had the chance to work
on the world's greatest telescope.
And we hope to see it back in service very soon.
And from the crew of Discovery, the STS-103 Hubble mission,
we'd also like to wish everybody happy holidays
and some peace on Earth.
-And, Discovery, Houston.
We thank you very much for the powerful words.
It means all the more that it comes from you two,
while we have such a great camera view on you,
and while you're out there, EVA and giving so much of yourself.
We'll pass all the words on, and we just can't say enough
for you and your crew members for what you've done for us.
-Merry Christmas.
[ Applause ]
-I'm sure you know who I am.
You know, today is the busiest day of the year for me,
out delivering presents to good little girls and boys.
I heard the Discovery was up in space working over the holidays,
so I decided to stop by and visit my astronaut friends
and deliver presents
because they've been good girls and boys.
It is a very busy time of the year,
and so I must be on my way,
but I would like to wish all the boys and girls
around the world a merry Christmas,
especially those ones down in Houston in Mission Control
at the Kennedy Space Center,
which has done some much work during the holidays
to make this mission such a great success.
It's a busy, busy year, so I've got to go.
Merry Christmas, boys and girls.
Merry Christmas.
♪♪
[ Bing Crosby's "I'll be Home for Christmas" playing ]
♪♪
♪ I'll be home for Christmas ♪
♪ You can count on me ♪
♪ Please have snow ♪
♪ And mistletoe ♪
♪ And presents on the tree ♪
♪♪
♪ Christmas Eve will find me ♪
♪ Where the love light gleams ♪
♪ I'll be home for Christmas ♪
♪ If only in my dreams ♪
-Merry Christmas morning, Discovery.
Time to return Hubble to the heavens.
-Good morning, Houston, and merry Christmas
to all y'all down there,
and Hubble will be home for Christmas
because today we're going to set her free.
-Discovery, Houston, we are on board with good video.
-Discovery copy.
-And on the flight deck of Discovery
we see the STS-103 crew members, payload commander Steve Smith
in the foreground conducting some video documentation
of the solar arrays.
He is joined by pilot Scott Kelly.
-Discovery, Houston for payloads.
-Go ahead, Steve.
-Chris, we are taking ESE pictures
with the 400-millimeter lens of the solar array hinge pins
on the...minus V2 wing.
We think we see three of the pins protruding,
and no doubt you've seen the broken springs
on the end of the solar array, too.
And Scott is just starting to take pictures
of the plus V2 wing.
-Copy, Steve. Thanks.
If you get a chance to voice annotate any of those
for later reference, that'd be great.
And it's great watching you work.
-And now also in this view,
European Space Agency astronaut Claude Nicollier.
Both Smith and Nicollier conducted space walks
over the course of the last three days.
-And now we see Jean-François Clervoy
maneuvering the mechanical arm, the robotic arm,
provided to NASA by the Canadian Space Agency,
and he'll be using that arm
to momentarily grapple the telescope
using the end effector capturing the grapple fixture,
which is basically a pin
that is captured with snares inside that end effector.
-Discovery, Houston, we see a good grapple.
And for the front-seaters, we do have stars of opportunity
already sitting there if you want to get early on the align.
-Houston, we copy that.
The stars number 37 and 16, we'll put that to work.
-Discovery is now across the equator
to begin the 90th orbit of its mission,
headed northeasterly across the Pacific Ocean.
And the Hubble Space Telescope now being maneuvered
to the release position,
very carefully now on the end of the shuttle's robotic arm
riding high above the payload bay of Discovery.
The telescope will be maneuvered over
to the side of the payload bay.
The normal release position that folks familiar
with servicing missions in the past
will be very familiar with the view of the telescope
hanging over the side of the payload bay
and awaiting all of the final
commanding that will be performed
by the Hubble Space Telescope project team
located at the space telescope operation
control center up in Greenbelt, Maryland,
at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.
-Discovery, Houston, for payload.
-Go ahead, Houston.
-Discovery, we polled the room.
You have a go for the release of the Hubble Space Telescope.
-Copy. Discovery has a go for release of Hubble.
-And as we can see, the Hubble Space Telescope,
Christmas present to the world,
now refurbished after three space walks,
24 1/2 hours of service,
on the telescope now being returned to space to conduct
the scientific investigations for which it was designed.
The release coming right on time at 5:03 p.m. Central,
6:03 this evening Eastern time.
And the first separation maneuver being performed.
And Discovery and its seven astronauts
now saying goodbye to the Hubble Space Telescope,
which has resided in the payload bay for the last 5 days.
The telescope, again, on its way back to service...
...following this third servicing mission.
-Houston Discovery, we have a release
for a Sep-1 burn keg
of 5 days, 22 hours, 13 minutes, 45 seconds.
-Copy, 22:13:45.
-Pilot Scott Kelly confirming the separation maneuver.
He's in the charge, flying the orbiter away
from the Hubble Space Telescope.
-And, Discovery, congratulations for an excellent deploy.
Thanks for the great Christmas present.
It's just what we wanted.
-Christmas is a time of joy, faith, and hope,
a time of memory and for families.
We send our families and friends our warmest greetings
and promise that we will soon be home with you.
We also want to extend our greetings
and best wishes to all men and women,
girls and boys around this Earth
that seem so much smaller from my vantage point.
Yet small as it is in this vast universe,
it is the home of all humankind.
The familiar Christmas story reminds us that for millennia,
people of many faiths and cultures
have looked to the skies
and studied the stars and planets in their search
for a deeper understanding of life and for greater wisdom.
We, the Discovery crew,
in the mission to the Hubble Space Telescope,
are very proud of being part of ongoing search beyond ourself.
We hope and trust that the lessons of the universe
has to teach us and will speak to the yearning
that we know is in human hearts everywhere.
The yearning for peace on Earth,
goodwill among all the human family.
As we stand at the threshold of the new millennium,
we send you all our greetings.
I would like to wish a merry Christmas and very happy
and healthy new millennium to all.
Standby.
-[ Speaking French ]
-[ Speaking German ]
-To all our family and friends and people of planet Earth,
happy holidays,
and may we have peace on Earth in the new millennium.
-Feliz Navidad.
-I wish everybody a happy Christmas.
-[ Speaking native language ]
-Merry Christmas to all the people
of the planet Earth and good night.
-And, Houston, thank you for letting us
to take the time out to celebrate this special day.
-You know when you think about it, everybody
is talking about the millennium, and for the last 100 years,
man had not left the ground, 100 years ago.
Now man has left the Earth.
What do you think is ahead
for us in space travel in the next century?
-It really is truly remarkable that 100 years ago,
our grandfathers, you know, would cross oceans on ships.
They would think that flying was something that might be crazy.
A few people dared to try, and flight in our lifetime
has become absolutely routine in aircraft.
And now here we are, on the remarkable space shuttle,
and although no shuttle flight is routine,
NASA is ensuring that flight in space is safe,
and I think we are just seeing the very beginning.
There's no question that the next 30 years
will show us things
that we couldn't have even imagined 10 years ago,
and that now, you know, we're thinking might be possible,
30 years from now will be routine.
I'm sure that we'll see space tourism.
I'm sure that we're going to see people, again,
going to the Moon.
And hopefully in our lifetimes,
we'll have people spending large amounts of time on Mars.
And I think in the next 100 years we'll see more work
starting to look out further towards the stars.
We'll probably have looked at planets nearby,
orbiting stars nearby, and found out that, in fact,
maybe they have continents and oceans and atmospheres.
So, we'll start looking towards even more distant horizons.
-Great things ahead for our children.
NASA has been criticized for problems
with its unmanned programs.
Do you feel it's time for manned missions
to start exploring again?
-All right. This is Mike Foale.
I think the answer to that is they have to work together.
Obviously, all of the things that keep us alive
and let us work and do such a wonderful job
is service this telescope, Hubble, involves technology,
and it involves automatic machinery
and machinery operated by human beings,
designed by human beings and maintained by them.
And in fact, the Hubble mission is a very good example
of how you have basically a robot,
which is the Hubble Space Telescope,
doing tremendous work on its own,
but occasionally it needs some really loving care,
and that's what we've just given it,
in terms of refurbishment and repair.
Human missions are the most exciting thing
for all of us, of course, human beings.
It stirs our imagination.
It makes us dream of great things,
on how the human race can go out from the the Earth
through the solar system and beyond.
But before we do that, we have to take some precursor steps,
and we do that with robotic spacecraft.
So, I think actually NASA has a very well-balanced program
of both unmanned and piloted vehicles.
And I think we should continue that into the next century,
and in fact, we'll be doing it with partner nations
starting with the International Space Station.
♪♪
[ Reba McEntire's "We're So Good Together" playing ]
♪♪
♪ How do two people like us ever happen to meet ♪
♪ I think about that ♪
♪ Was the timing just right ♪
♪ Was is it just that the night was so sweet ♪
♪ I think about that ♪
♪ Was it chemical, physical, what was the deal? ♪
♪ Or did some kind of magic turn out to be reeeal? ♪
♪ Might be how you kiss and hold me tight ♪
♪ When we're walking, honey, underneath the moonlight ♪
♪ Might be how it keeps on getting better ♪
♪ We haven't even talked abooout forever ♪
♪ But I just know that we're so good togetheeer ♪
♪♪
-Good morning, Discovery. That was for the PLT.
Good morning, Scott.
-Morning, Chris.
Had that one figured out, thanks.
Discovery is welcome for questions at this time.
-Okay. We'll go ahead and start here with Mark Crow.
-Thank -- Chronicle, and my question is for Steve Smith.
Long ago the Hubble Space Telescope
was designed for space walk servicing.
I wonder whether --
Do you believe that concept has held up over time?
And more specifically, do you think it will be possible
to do the kind of intricate repairs
that might be needed in the future
to keep the telescope flying till 2010 or later?
-Mark, thanks for the good question.
Yes. Hubble will be serviced well until 2010 easily.
And I think it really was the flagship
for serviceable spaceships.
We designed it, of course, back in the '70s,
and we've replaced probably over 20 boxes now
on three different missions.
Some of the boxes were easier to change than others,
and I think we'll take those lessons
and apply those to the space station,
which we, of course, are developing now.
So, we found the 13 boxes
we put in all to be pretty easy to deal with.
One or two of them were a little harder than the others,
but it really has been
the flagship for spaceship servicing.
-Glen Golightly, Space.com -- A question for John Grunsfeld.
John, I was reading in your web journal on the JSC site
about your hands being sore from the EVAs.
I was wondering how they were holding up
and what sort of training you did in preparation for the EVA?
And some thoughts on your first two EVAs?
-Well, my hands are fine now.
Fortunately, hands recover pretty quickly.
I think everybody on the crew spent a lot of time in the gym,
and particularly the EVA folks, working out, lifting weights,
doing hand exercises, squeezing small rubber balls
to try and prepare for this mission
because doing EVAs and doing the kind of work
we were doing on the Hubble Space Telescope
is particularly hand-intensive, but we're all feeling great now.
If the telescope were still in the bay and needed more help,
we'd certainly all want to go out and do it again.
I think we really enjoyed doing
that and getting Hubble back up to speed.
-Thanks, this is Mark Rowe again from the Houston Chronicle,
and my question is for Mike Foale.
Wonder what it's like for you to go back to space
on a relatively short trip after your long trip
on the Mir space station.
-Well, it's kind of like coming home in a strange way.
When we got to space, I felt very comfortable.
I thought I adapted far faster than I have
on my previous shuttle flights.
It's a great pleasure to work in space
and to sleep in space again,
do all those hygiene items that I had become quite accustomed
to over 5 months and such a short flight.
We had a very different pace.
The pace here during the Hubble mission was extremely intricate.
We had to do an awful lot in a very short time,
and in fact, we still have more to do to reenter.
Basically, they are different types of missions,
the shuttle mission and the station mission,
and I needed to do this personally
because it got me back into the idea of organizing
a good, quick expedition that does something fast
and furiously, successfully, and then comes back.
The other type of mission on the station is rather different,
and I wanted to keep my experience in both.
-Bill Harr with CBS News,
maybe for Steve or John Grunsfeld, I'm not sure which.
You guys set the second-, third-, and fourth-longest
EVAs in U.S. shuttle history,
and I know going into this, with all your training,
you were budgeted for 6 1/2 hours in that time frame.
I know that everything went well and all of that.
I'm just wondering if, when you go back,
you feed back into the training process,
that perhaps maybe you need to a little more conservative
on the planning as you do space station and other things,
just given that things do seem to take a little bit longer
when you actually get out in weightlessness to do this.
-Well, we did train a lot for this flight.
We trained about 10 hours in the pool
for every 10 hours in space,
and we also estimated how long each thing would take.
It did take a little bit longer on a couple of the tasks,
but I think it depends on what task it is.
Some of the EVAs, we plan for 6 hours,
and they go 6 hours.
Some of them, we plan for 6, and they go a little bit longer.
I think we ran into --
I think I counted 13 anomalies on the first spacewalk,
and, at the end of the mission,
really didn't have the capability
to delay to a fourth EVA, which we would have standard.
So, I think we probably pushed a little bit longer
on these flights because of the end-of-mission constraint.
I don't think we would have planned the EVAs any different.
We had several runs for each task,
so we really had good measures,
but it's always hard to estimate the anomalies that come up,
and I think, in my recollection, that's the most anomalies
that have ever come up during a space walk.
I think I counted, like I said, between 10 and 15.
-And you guys alluded to this the other night,
talking about the next mission
and the condition Hubble is currently in.
I was wondering if maybe John Grunsfeld could expand
on that a little bit,
what the condition of the telescope is now
and any thoughts you guys might plug back into the SM3B mission
to make that operation go smoothly.
-Well, going back to answer your previous question
a little bit, I think, as it relates it to SM3B
but also the International Space Station and spacewalks,
I think one of the big lessons that I've learned from this
is that the model for training
that we used on the Hubble Space Telescope mission
is really a great model for spacewalking.
As Steve said, we spend about 10 hours in the water
for every 1 hour that we were out EVA,
and just the organization of the teams that came from Goddard,
that came from the Johnson Space Center,
all the subcontractors,
the way that they trained us for all the contingencies
and how to deal with stubborn bolts and boxes
that might not come out was really excellent,
and we should apply that to not only
the next Hubble repair mission
but also I think all of the Space Station missions.
As far as 3B goes, we did a couple of look-arounds
to inspect some connectors
and the condition of the rest of the telescope,
and for me, it's really surprising.
The telescope that's been up here for 10 years
with only three servicing missions,
it's really in pretty great shape,
and right at the end of the mission,
as we were putting all the tools away,
I had a couple seconds just to look and sort of survey
the telephone up close and personal,
and Hubble is doing really well.
I think the next team will have a real good opportunity
to make the telephone even better.
-Bill Harr with CBS again, for Steve Smith,
I just was obviously thinking about writing a lessons-
learned spacewalk story, and you mentioned 13 anomalies.
Can you give us just some sense of what they were?
I'm assuming you mean bolts that are a little tighter
than expected and that sort of thing,
but maybe just expand a little bit on what the unexpected was.
-Sure, we had several bolts
that wouldn't release at their normal torque.
We had several bolts that wouldn't tighten
at their normal torque.
We had one box, the very first rate sensor unit,
that wouldn't go in very easily the first time.
We had some trouble closing some doors also on that first day,
the doors that cover the gyroscopes.
We had trained for all those, though, and in fact,
I would say about 60% of our training really focused
on these contingencies such that even
if we didn't have communication with Houston,
we'd know exactly what to do.
Even some of the non- Hubble equipment,
we had a foot restraint that actually is shuttle equipment
that wouldn't go into a certain setting,
so these are pretty typical.
We weren't necessarily surprised by any of them.
We were just surprised by so many of them that first day,
especially.
-And this is a very unique view of the thrusters firing again
for about a minute and a half
and now down to 44 seconds of firing time,
adjusting Discovery's altitude in preparation
for tomorrow's landing activities.
At the time of this orbit, it just burned.
Discovery is out over the central Indian Ocean
headed toward the West Coast of Australia.
-Discovery, Houston, good burn, good residuals,
no further trim required.
-Discovery copies.
-Plan for tomorrow's entry,
we are going to be bringing up both Edwards and KSC.
KSC will be prime.
Right now, the forecast that we're looking at
has both sides go,
both for end of mission and plus one and plus two.
There is a concern about the crosswinds at the Cape tomorrow.
The forecast has been fairly near the limit.
Our current plan may be to try to get into KSC only tomorrow
and then have Edwards available for the day
after that if the forecast remains the same
for good weather at all sites.
First opportunity tomorrow will be a daylight opportunity,
about 15 minutes before sunset.
There are no glare issues
due to the sun being in the south there.
Out at Edwards, the sun angles favor Edwards runway 04.
There is runway construction
going on at Edwards off to the side of the runway.
The end board side of the runway has a resting gear cable
being put in 1,500 feet from the approach end of each runway
with the trench and some equipment,
but it's all off to the side.
You just may notice that if we wind up going into Edwards.
All your entry messages are on board
except for the entry summary,
which will be coming up after a little bit.
-Scott, thanks a lot. We copy all of that.
We'll just hope that the winds die at KSC,
so we can take Discovery back home.
-Roger that, Discovery, and I just want to point out the winds
are currently within limits.
It's just a concern
if the model doesn't forecast the winds very well,
but right now, all the sites are go for tomorrow.
-Discovery copies.