Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, November 30, 1993 TAG: 9311300100
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CAPE CANAVERAL, FLA. LENGTH: Medium
What if?
What if space shuttle Endeavour can't rendezvous with the nearsighted Hubble? What if the shuttle robot arm breaks and can't grab the $1.6 billion telescope? What if the telescope's solar wings don't fold up? What if the telescope is in worse shape than expected? What if one of the seven astronauts gets sick? What if the shuttle toilet breaks and forces an early return?
Put it all together and you've got a nightmare of astronomical proportions for a $629 million repair mission.
Nightmares - and imaginations - were running rampant Monday at Kennedy Space Center as NASA counted down toward the scheduled 4:57 a.m. Wednesday liftoff of Endeavour. The chance of good launch weather was a dismal 30 percent.
During the 11-day flight, astronauts are to take a record five spacewalks to try to fix Hubble's problems - as well as NASA's image, battered repeatedly over the past several years and in desperate need of a big win. If necessary, the crew could conduct seven spacewalks to install 11 new telescope parts and yet another spacewalk to deal with a shuttle emergency.
Hubble program manager Ken Ledbetter said his biggest fear is that "something might happen that would preclude us from even trying to fix the telescope."
"I think we can handle anything that will happen once we're out in the bay and start working [on Hubble]. But if something were to happen before, a problem with the shuttle, a problem with the crew, an attack of appendicitis or whatever . . . that would be tragic."
NASA's associate director of flight projects for Hubble, Joe Rothenberg, shares those fears.
If for some reason the astronauts can't capture the bus-size telescope 360 miles above Earth and anchor it in Endeavour's cargo bay, "we don't even have a chance to get up to bat," Rothenberg said.
Hubble scientist Edward Weiler is most afraid of the unknown: The project's record has shown "it's the things you didn't prepare for that will get you."
Like so many others at NASA, Weiler has been living with stress ever since the Hubble was found to have an improperly polished mirror that blurred its vision of extremely remote objects in the universe. That discovery came two months after the 1990 launch.
Besides a mirror that's too flat along the edge, Hubble's troubles include flapping electricity-generating solar panels, three broken gyroscopes, several failed computer memory boards and a balky power-supply for an ultraviolet-light detector.
"You lie awake and think of what else can go wrong," Weiler said. "You think about it when you're driving home, and you go talk to the engineers again. I've done that about 12 or 15 times the past year."
To improve their chances of success, the astronauts, flight controllers and telescope team have prepared for numerous problems that might occur during the mission. The guidelines for these "what-ifs, thens," as Weiler calls them, fill a stack of paper 3 feet high.
"This project has done everything that's humanly possible to make this mission a success," Weiler said. "Is that enough? I'll tell you in a couple months."
Keywords:
INFOLINE
by CNB