Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, November 28, 1993 TAG: 9311280030
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CAPE CANAVERAL, FLA. LENGTH: Medium
"It's time to go do it," payload commander Story Musgrave said.
There's no more underwater training for Musgrave and the three other spacewalkers who will try to fix Hubble's blurry vision and other problems. No more tool checks. No more flight simulations.
And no more time - the countdown was to begin today for a 4:57 a.m. Wednesday liftoff of Endeavour. The seven crew members arrived at Kennedy Space Center on Saturday.
Musgrave, making his fifth shuttle flight, said he's ready, but scared.
"I may have been in the water hundreds of hours. I may have been in the clean room [with the Hubble replacement parts] hundreds of hours. As long as I've been in space, I've been getting ready," Musgrave said. "But like the Olympics, it boils down to a few seconds. You've got one shot at it. It's got to go right."
He paused, then added, "It's better to be scared than overconfident."
Normally bursting with can-do talk, NASA is expressing cautious optimism about the Hubble repair mission, considered the most complex space shuttle flight ever. The emphasis is on "cautious."
Mission planners are already saying they'll be surprised if everything goes according to plan. A record five spacewalks are scheduled for the 11-day flight, but the astronauts could go out twice more to work on Hubble if necessary.
NASA always planned a service call to Hubble in 1993, three years after the telescope was launched, but it never expected the need for such extensive repairs.
Hubble is nearsighted because of an improperly ground mirror. Its electricity-generating solar panels shake. Three of six gyroscopes, which help point the telescope, don't work. Both magnetometers have glitches; the wire coils measure Earth's magnetic field to help steer the telescope.
The list goes on.
by CNB