♪♪
-♪ Got a blue telescope ♪
♪ I'm looking at the world tonight ♪
♪ Through a blue telescope ♪
♪ I wish I may, I wish I might ♪
♪ Not see what I see ♪
♪ Sheet metal on sheets of ice ♪
♪ Looking through this blue telescope ♪
♪ Down a moonstruck road tonight ♪
♪ Blue breath on my windshield ♪
♪ I came to a frozen place ♪
♪ She shivered when I said goodbye ♪
♪ I wish I didn't have to face ♪
♪ Her in that rearview mirror ♪
♪ Though she lives in the heart of me ♪
♪ Looking through this blue telescope ♪
♪ I guess she'll always be a star to me ♪
-Columbia, Houston, good morning.
Welcome to your first full day in space, and, Rick,
that last "Blue Telescope" by John Hiatt was for you.
Scooter, wanted to give you an update.
The Hubble Space Telescope is over the South Pacific
currently, about 8.000 miles behind you.
You're opening at about 1.000 miles per orbit.
which will have you lapping HST in about 1 day,
6 hours from now as Nancy moves in for the grapple.
-And good morning, Houston.
Thanks for your words on the big picture,
and it's great to be here in space again.
-Back to live downlink television now
from the cargo bay of Columbia,
once again looking from front to aft.
The robot arm on the right side of your picture
and the rigid array carrier on the left on side of the picture,
which houses the two new solar arrays
that will be installed on the Hubble Space Telescope.
Those arrays to be installed on spacewalks one
and two next Monday and Tuesday.
Grunsfeld and Linnehan
to conduct the first spacewalk on Monday.
Newman and Massimino to conduct the second spacewalk on Tuesday,
and after the installation of that second solar array
on Tuesday, Newman and Massimino
will press on the replacement of the reaction wheel assembly
in the Hubble Space Telescope as well.
Here in the mission control center,
the payload deployment and retrieval systems officer,
basically the robot-arm operator,
the robot-arm officer here in mission control reports
that everything is looking very good in the check
out of that Canadian-built robot arm
that will be used so extensively
over the course of the next week.
Robot-arm operator Nancy Currie reporting to CapCom Mario Runco
here in the mission control center
that she will be providing television views of this
from the camera at the end of shuttle's robot arm,
zooming in on various components of the flight-support system.
That is the berthing and positioning system post.
That post will be mounted at the base
of the flight-support system after it is --
After the Hubble Space Telescope is mounted and latched in place
by the space walkers John Grunsfeld and Rick Linnehan
at the beginning of their first spacewalk on Monday morning.
Basically, it is a post that will rigidize
the flight-support system to prevent any EVA
or spacewalking activity or orbiter activity
from imposing any vibrations on the telescope
during the servicing tasks themselves.
Those solar arrays, although about twice as heavy
as the current solar arrays on Hubble,
will generate far more electricity,
and unlike the current arrays that roll up
like Venetian blinds, these arrays open up like a book
into two sections one-third the size of the current arrays
on the Hubble Space Telescope.
Because they are one-third the size,
they'll also provide less drag on the telescope,
thus preserving its altitude for a longer period of time.
The new arrays that you're looking at at the moment are --
Once they unfold, these two sections,
which unfold like opening a book,
are about 25 feet long and are about 8 feet high.
Columbia commander Scott Altman
looking out of the overhead windows
as the robot-arm cameras look in on Columbia's crew
at the aft flight deck.
Altman now joined by Jim Newman at the aft flight deck
as the crew continues to pore over all of it's instrumentation
as they conduct the survey of the payload bay
and all of the support equipment in the cargo bay
in preparation for the retrieval of the Hubble Space Telescope.
Now this split-screen view
showing the operation of the flight-support system.
That is the wheel-like structure,
the circular structure at the rear of Columbia's cargo bay,
which will be rotated upward,
basically, into a horizontal position
to serve as the work platform for the telescope
once it is mounted on that platform tomorrow morning.
-Copy that, Mario.
The pivot up is going smoothly.
37-minute gap. we'll pick up at 22:43.
-Good copy, John. See you then.
-Payload commander and mission specialist John Grunsfeld
reporting that all going well with the rotation
of the flight-support system
that you see on the left side of this split-screen view.
-Columbia for Eagle. -Again, the engineering teams
that have been formed to analyze this reduced flow of Freon
in loop number one in the cargo bay of Columbia
are pulling together a story that provides growing optimism
that there will be no impact to the mission
to service the Hubble Space Telescope.
Last night, Shuttle program manager Ron Dittemore
said that he was very optimistic
that the stabilization of the flow rate
in Freon loop number one
will result in the mission proceeding
to its full duration of 11 days,
but another story will be told at the mission management team
meeting at 12 noon Central time today
to firm up all of the engineering analysis
and the rationale for pressing ahead
with a full-duration mission.
-As you can see, Columbia is a little bit crowded right now.
We've got some of the suits out,
and we're getting ready to go to work
and making sure that they're all set when we need them.
-Again, on the far right, John Grunsfeld,
in the middle, Rick Linnehan.
That is the spacewalking team for the three
of the five spacewalks that will be conducted
to service the Hubble Space Telescope
on Monday, Wednesday and Friday of next week,
spacewalks one, three and five.
Spacewalk number one by Grunsfeld and Linnehan
will be designed to replace the starboard solar array
on the telescope with a brand-new one.
The new solar array is one-third the size of the current arrays.
They weigh twice as much but will create less drag
on the telescope to maintain altitude
and will provide far more electrical capability to power
all of Hubble's scientific equipment at the same time.
-James has been working very happy
at getting his photo-TV corner all set up,
and the flight deck is starting to look neat but crowded.
-Columbia's pilot Duane Carey, nickname Digger,
and commander Scott Altman, nickname Scooter,
up on the flight deck, the aft flight deck,
which will be the center of much activity,
and now joined by flight engineer
and primary robot-operator Nancy Currie.
Currie will be at the controls along with Altman,
Altman flying Columbia manually up underneath the telescope.
Alongside of Altman will be Currie
at the controls of the shuttle's robot arm
on the right side of the aft flight deck tomorrow morning
as she reaches out to grab the telescope
with a 50-foot remote-manipulator system.
Carey will actually be commander's seat
up front on the flight deck
as he monitors Columbia's systems
and calls out range and range rate towards Altman,
who will be looking out of the overhead windows on Columbia,
very much as he is doing right now,
as he looks directly up at the base of the telescope,
which will be canted at about a 35-degree angle
in preparation for its grapple.
-What's the status of the mission is right now?
What do you think is the chance you're going to be able
to stay up there and do what they have in mind for you?
-Well, I think things are looking pretty good.
Of course, the mission management team is going to meet
today, this afternoon,
and made some final decisions about what to do with us.
So far, everybody has been working very hard at it trying
to make the right decision, and I think everyone is feeling
we might stay cautiously optimistic.
However, you know, safety is the first thing,
and we're going to make sure that everything we do
is done safely.
-Okay, would you talk a little bit about
just some of what's involved with grabbing hold of the Hubble
and starting to work on it.
It's in fact quite dangerous to go out there
and do some of these things, isn't it?
-Well, there's a wide range of activities
that have to be done to support all the work
that we're going to do on Hubble, and you're right.
It is a jam-packed mission.
We've been working very hard basically from the moment
we got into space
until right now trying to get the vehicle ready,
our spacesuits ready and all of ourselves
ready for the rendezvous which takes place tomorrow
and then the subsequent 5 days of space walks.
They are demanding space walks.
It's a very unforgiving environment.
You need to make sure that you take every precaution
and do the right thing, and that's what we have in mind.
John is the payload commander,
and he's going to be basically leading the space walks,
so I can turn it over to him for that portion of the question.
-Okay, Dr. Grunsfeld, why don't you tell us --
You'll be outside for that first EVA.
Tell us when that is and what will you be doing
on that first one?
-I think in Chicago,
it starts approximately Monday night at midnight,
and so folks who work hard all day,
if they have an energy left, hopefully they'll stay up
and watch a little of the space walks on NASA television,
but the first space walk,
we're going to get the payload bay ready
for all of the subsequent space walks,
and then the big task,
which will be quite a good visual treat,
will be to install new -- a set of new solar arrays.
We're going to put one side on on the first day
on the Hubble telescope, and so if all goes well,
we'll roll up the old ones the night before
and then swap out the flexible arrays
for some new, rigid arrays, and then we'll carry that
on onto EVA two with Jim Newman and Mike Massimino.
But before, let me just pass it onto Nancy for a moment
because before we can even start any of the Hubble EVAs,
we have to capture Hubble with the arm,
and I think you asked about that just a little earlier.
-Yeah, let's do that.
Dr. Currie, good morning to you, and why don't you tell us?
Also, when you're operating the arm out there,
you have an astronaut at the end of the arm, don't you?
-Yes, sir, I do, and this won't be the first time.
This is my third flight, actually,
that I've flown a crewman by the end of the arm,
and it's always an exciting treat,
and it's a great pleasure to be able to
with such professionals on this team.
I flew my last flight with Dr. Jim Newman,
who will be one of the space walkers.
I've worked closely with John before,
and we've really been training hard over the last year.
I'm really looking forward to it.
-When the coolant-loop problem first occurred,
did your stomach sink?
How worried were you
that you'd wind up with a shortened mission?
-Well, it got our attention at first,
although I thought it might just be a minor problem.
It wasn't apparent right at first
what the impact was going to be.
Since that time, we've been kind of thinking about the mission
and just hopeful that we can square everything away and go on
to perform what we came here to space to do.
-The shuttle program manager said the situation
looked gloomy at first, and that's his own word, gloomy,
is that how you'd describe the mood aboard Columbia yesterday?
-Well, to be honest, we've gone on the assumption
that we're here to stay, that we're going to do our job,
and we've just kind of kept that thought foremost in our minds.
There's been so much to do to get ready for the space walks,
the rendezvous and the space walks,
that we've just kept ourselves busy
and tried not to think about it
since we don't have much control over it,
so we'll wait and find out what the final decision is,
but until then, we're charging ahead full speed
with our eyes on the goal.
-The shuttle Columbia is the oldest space shuttle.
The last mission, I think, was 3 years ago,
and that mission got a little hairy.
There was some trouble there.
Does that concern you,
especially with this latest problem?
-Well, folks spent the last 2 years working on Columbia.
going over it with a fine-tooth comb,
and I think, overall,
that Columbia is in a great shape.
You know, we're taking a look at this problem
and see after we get back what caused it and find --
take steps to prevent it in the future.
-Your mission this time is to retool the Hubble telescope.
What exactly are you going to be doing?
-Actually, when we're done with the telescope, I think
it's fair to say the telescope will be better than new.
We're going to put a whole new power system on board
with new solar arrays
that'll generate more than 20% power for the --
20% more power for the telescope.
The super exciting part is going to be the addition
of the advanced camera for surveys,
and it's like buying the top-of-the-line digital camera.
It'll be able to do more in less time
than anything else that's been on Hubble,
and so I think the really great discoveries
that'll come out of Hubble are those that are yet to come,
and then we're also going to put a cooling system on a camera
that was put on in 1997,
to bring that instrument back to life,
and so overall, it's a mission that's a combination
of improving the engineering on Hubble
to make it last another decade and also a lot of new science.
-What exactly is the Hubble? I mean, we know
it's a very powerful, extraordinary telescope,
but what does it do for the United States here?
How is it helping us?
-So the Hubble is not just a scientific instrument,
although on that score, it's certainly
the most productive scientific instrument
ever produced by humans.
It's also in a sense an icon of science,
and so students all over the world
and especially the United States get to log onto the web,
get to learn about astronomy and science in textbooks,
and so it's really a tool of inspiration,
but it's also developed a lot of technology
in producing the instruments that have caused new revolutions
in some ways in medical research
and in optics research that are helping Americans all over.
-Nancy, I see you sitting back there.
You're being very quiet.
What's it's like as a woman in space?
You're with a bunch of guys. How do you --
I mean, this might be sort of a naive question,
but how do you change?
How do you do things that, you know,
I guess the opposite sexes need to do away from each other?
-Well, I think each one of us
considers this sort of like a big camping trip,
and we just kind of are out there in the field as it were,
in this case several hundred miles up,
and pretty much from the time you go to bed --
from the time you get up in the morning to the time
you go to bed, you're at work, and as far as privacy, you know,
even we are a little bit surprised how crowded it is
this time with the airlock inside,
and we've got six of probably the biggest guys in the office
and then the littlest person in the office,
but we can still have some privacy here
and respect each other's privacy.