May 13 2009
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(New page: ESA launched its far-infrared space telescope Herschel and its cosmic background mapper Planck on an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana at 13:12 (UT). With ...)
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ESA launched its far-infrared space telescope Herschel and its cosmic background mapper Planck on an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana at 13:12 (UT). With a payload weighing 5.3 tons (4.8 tonnes, or 4,808 kilograms), the Ariane 5 rocket carried the largest telescope ever launched into space. The two spacecraft would carry out their scientific observations from separate orbits at approximately Lagrange point 2 (L2), a virtual point in space approximately 1.5 million kilometers (0.93 million miles) from Earth, in the opposite direction from the Sun, where the combined pull of Earth and Sun creates a gravitational stability point. Herschel would make infrared observations of stars, galaxies, and star-forming regions, using a 3.5-meter-diameter mirror, the largest yet carried into space. Herschel, weighing 3,400 kilograms (3.75 tons), carried three instruments—the Photodetector Array Camera and Spectrometer (PACS), the Spectral and Photometric Imaging Receiver (SPIRE), and the Heterofyne Instrument for the Far Infrared (HIFI). In addition, it carried 2,300 liters (607.6 gallons) of liquid helium, to cool the instruments to a few 10ths of a degree above 0 K. ESA had scheduled Herschel’s mission to continue three years, but the mission could continue until Herschel had depleted its helium. The 1,900-kilogram (2.09-ton) Planck carried an aperture Mirror with a diameter of 1.5 meters (4.92 feet) and two cryogenically cooled instruments—the High Frequency Instrument (HFI), which would detect emissions in six frequency bands between 100 and 857 GHz (3 millimeters to 350 microns), and the Low Frequency Instrument (LFI), which would operate between 30 and 70 GHz (10 millimeters to 4.3 millimeters). Scientists expected that Planck would use these instruments to measure minute variations in the cosmic microwave background radiation, gathering detailed information about the age, size, mass, and geometry of the early universe. Planck would also produce two all-sky maps before the end of the planned 15-month mission.
European Space Agency, “ESA En Route to the Origins of the Universe,” ESA news release 10-2009, 14 May 2009, http://www.esa.int/esaCP/Pr_10_2009_p_EN.html (accessed 5 July 2011); Spacewarn Bulletin, no. 667, 1 June 2009, http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/spacewarn/spx667.html (accessed 5 July 2011).
Commander Scott D. Altman eased Atlantis up to within 30 feet (9.1 meters) of HST. Operating the Shuttle’s robotic arm, K. Megan McArthur captured the telescope at 1:14 p.m. (EDT), on her first attempt. An hour later, still using the robotic arm, McArthur successfully secured the telescope in its berth at the back of the Shuttle’s cargo bay. A communication glitch slowed the procedure—the astronauts had sent commands to the telescope to ease the capture, directing it, for example, to shut off the gyroscopes. However, the astronauts were unable to discern whether HST had obeyed their commands. Instead, the crew had to relay the information through the telescopes control room at NASA’s GSFC.
Dennis Overbye, “Astronauts Grab Hubble for Repairs,” New York Times, 14 May 2009; Todd Halvorson, “What a Catch! Hubble Grabbed for Spacewalking Repairs,” Florida Today (Brevard, FL), 14 May 2009.
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