Dec 21 1999
From The Space Library
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(New page: Space Shuttle Discovery astronauts captured the HST using the Shuttle's robotic arm. Discovery had to alter its approach to the space telescope, beca...)
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Space Shuttle Discovery astronauts captured the HST using the Shuttle's robotic arm. Discovery had to alter its approach to the space telescope, because the telescope's failed gyroscopes had "left the telescope a little shaky," but Commander Curtis L. Brown Jr. and his crew had prepared for such a scenario. A fully operational HST would have had its aft pointed at the center of Earth; Brown would have carried out a straightforward approach, rising up from below until the robotic arm simply locked on. Without its gyroscopes functioning, the HST slowly rotated at one revolution per hour. Therefore, controllers activated backup gyroscopes to eliminate the rotation as much as possible, permitting Brown to fly around the HST and properly position the Shuttle's robotic arm. As both spacecraft traveled around the Earth at 17,500 miles (28,000 kilometers) per hour with Brown at the controls, Discovery moved closer to the HST until French astronaut Jean-Francois Clervoy had removed the 43-foot (13-meter), 25,000-pound (11,300-kilogram) telescope from orbit and anchored it in the Shuttle cargo bay.
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