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Atlantis Shuttle Crew Releases Repaired Hubble Telescope

by Jordan Yerman | May 19, 2009 at 10:32 am

102 views | 16 Recommendations | 4 comments

The Hubble space telescope has been released back into the wild after the shuttle Atlantis crew completed a series of repairs.

The team will now focus on the shuttles heat shield, which shows signs of minor damage sustained during launch.

Astronaut Megan McArthur liberated the telescope from Atlantis' robotic arm at 0857 EDT (1357 BST), marking the last human contact with Hubble.

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Tomitheos

at 15:47 on May 19th, 2009

great footage! thanks for the detailed updates

Samir Joshi

at 23:27 on May 19th, 2009

Good Footage! I am always amazed by the spaceworks!! :)

dysamoria

at 02:51 on May 20th, 2009

Great news, and great to see it get reported. i am so often distressed at how forgetful and disinterested people seem to be in human spaceflight. thanks for posting this news. i hope it doesn't turn into ugly news later with that heat shield. our fleet of space shuttles (dwindling) should have been retired and replaced decades ago. the astronauts are flying more dangerously than in the "pioneering" era of spaceflight... we are STILL in that era! difference is: today there's so little "reason" for people to support it. no more races to win and all that nationalism junk. the rest... it's so intangible to people. sad.

[edit: congratulations to the Canadian robot arm on the US Space Shuttle ;-) ]

dysamoria

at 02:50 on May 20th, 2009

i had no idea that the Hubble had been in disrepair for so long. sad, again. i'm so disconnected from the things i used to care about most when i was young. so, thanks again (and i posted a thanks to Jarrett Martineau for the same reason).