SLIC: The Unsung Hero of Servicing Mission 4

  • Released Sunday, January 11th, 2009
  • Updated Wednesday, May 3rd, 2023 at 1:54PM
  • ID: 10365

The composite Super Lightweight Interchangeable Carrier (SLIC) is a new breed of equipment carrier that will allow the Space Shuttle to transport a full complement of scientific instruments and other components to Hubble. Made of carbon fiber with a cyanate ester resin and a titanium metal matrix composite, SLIC is the first all-composite carrier to fly on the shuttle. This flat, reusable pallet looks very different from the carriers flown on previous Hubble servicing missions because of its efficient design. This design, plus SLIC's composite construction, makes it much lighter and stronger than traditional aluminum carriers. About half the weight of its predecessors, SLIC shows a dramatic increase in performance over other Hubble equipment carriers, with nearly double the carrying capability.

SLIC: The Unsung Hero of Servicing Mission 4 is a web feature about NASA's first all-composite carrier to fly on the shuttle. The Super Lightweight Interchangeable Carrier (SLIC) will carry the new Wide Field Camera 3 and replacement batteries for the Hubble Space Telescope during Servicing Mission 4.

For complete transcript, click here.

For More Information

See http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/servicing/series/SLIC.html

Credits

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NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

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Datasets used in this visualization

HST
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HST (Collected with the WFPC2 sensor)

Wide-Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) was installed in Dec 1993 and used to obtain high resolution images of astronomical objects. This camera was removed in the last servicing mission so it is no longer in service.

Dataset can be found at: http://www.stsci.edu/hst/wfpc2/wfpc2_diag.html

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