Hubble, Renewed, Reinvigorated, Raring to Go

width="640" height="385">name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/TC1Oe9HhXgE&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0">name="allowFullScreen" value="true">name="allowscriptaccess" value="always">src="http://www.youtube.com/v/TC1Oe9HhXgE&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="580" height="385">/> Note: To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Hubble href="http://www.universetoday.com/guide-to-space/space/" class="alinks_links" title="" rel="external">Space href="http://www.universetoday.com/guide-to-space/telescopes/" class="alinks_links" title="" rel="external">Telescope, for ten days, href="http://www.universetoday.com/guide-to-space/the-universe/" class="alinks_links" title="" rel="external">Universe Today has featured highlights from two year slices of the life of the Hubble, focusing on its achievements as an astronomical observatory. Today's article looks at the last two years, to April 2010.

The stakes for the fifth, and final, Hubble servicing mission couldn't have been higher; not only were two new instruments to be installed (a relatively straight-forward task), not only was much of key infrastructure to be replaced (batteries, fine-guidance sensors, thermal blankets), but intricate repairs had to be performed on the two most complicated instruments (ACS and STIS), something not in the design, something difficult enough in a well-appointed lab on href="http://www.universetoday.com/guide-to-space/earth/" class="alinks_links" title="" rel="external">Earth much less done by href="http://www.universetoday.com/guide-to-space/spaceflight/astronauts/" class="alinks_links" title="" rel="external">astronauts in bulky href="http://www.universetoday.com/guide-to-space/spaceflight/space-suit/" class="alinks_links" title="" rel="external">space suits. The servicing mission was postponed, as it became clear that the work to be done was more extensive; but in May 2009 STS-125, involving five full days of space walks and 11 days in space, met all the objectives.

And a little under four months later, after extensive testing and calibration, the Hubble was back in the href="http://www.universetoday.com/guide-to-space/astronomy/" class="alinks_links" title="" rel="external">astronomy business.

This image is the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field (HUDF), as seen by WFC3 in the href="http://www.universetoday.com/guide-to-space/physics/infrared-light/" class="alinks_links" title="" rel="external">infrared (now that href="http://www.universetoday.com/2010/04/22/click-on-hubble-galaxy-zoo-now-includes-hst-images/">Hubble Zoo is live, you will have a chance to analyze fields like this yourself!)/>id="attachment_63445" class="wp-caption alignleft" style="width: 590px">href="http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/large/heic1001a.jpg">src="http://www.universetoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/HSTUDFIR-580x464.jpg" alt="" title="Hubble Ultra-Deep Field (WFC3) Click for larger version" width="580" height="464" class="size-medium wp-image-63445" />class="wp-caption-text">Hubble Ultra-Deep Field (WFC3) Click for larger version