|
|
Article: Rejuvenating observatory: green light given for space telescope repairs.(Hubble Space Telescope to be repaired)(Brief article)
- Article from:
- Science News
- Article date:
- November 4, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 Science Service, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
After 3 years of uncertainty following the Columbia disaster, NASA this week gave the go-ahead for a shuttle mission to carry astronauts to refurbish the 16-year-old Hubble Space Telescope and to install new detectors that would vastly improve its capabilities.
"This is fantastic news," says Matt Mountain, director of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. "We're getting a completely new telescope."
The shuttle flight, scheduled for mid-2008, would endow Hubble with the most sensitive ultraviolet spectrograph ever flown. The device is designed to trace the distribution of galaxies and intergalactic gas. The crew would also ...