♪♪
-Good morning, Columbia. That was Limp Bizkit
and the "Mission: Impossible 2" movie theme song.
It was for the entire crew.
Well, after 4 spectacular days
of impossibly difficult upgrades,
Hubble is sporting a new, improved set of solar rays,
a new power system and camera system,
and today, you'll give it a high-tech cooler
for its infrared camera.
Keep up the great work, and we'll do our best down here
to help you.
-And good morning Houston.
Thanks for the great wake-up music.
Sounds good.
We're ready to continue "Mission: Impossible" 3B
with our last EVA.
Looking forward to it.
-Houston, Columbia for Hubble. We're ready for the slew.
-And Digger, we'll give you the call for free drift.
They're still doing some commanding,
and we'll have the heads-up on the time in a moment.
-A good view of the Hubble Space Telescope as Columbia
passes over the Sahara Desert
and the northern portion of Africa
at an altitude of 360 statute miles.
Commands have been sent by the Space Telescope
Operations Control Center
to begin the repositioning of the solar arrays
to provide access to the face of the telescope
and the aft shroud that houses the near infrared camera
and Multi-Object Spectrometer,
which is the focus of attention today for John Grunsfeld
and Rick Linnehan as they install a cryocooling device
and mount a radiator to the side of the observatory
13 feet high that will attempt to revive the operation
of the infrared scientific instrument.
On the far right side of your screen,
you can see one of the fixed-head star trackers
on the Hubble Space Telescope.
Just above it, that wide rectangular area
is the location of the Wide Field/Planetary Camera,
which has been in operation since December of 1993,
installed on the first Hubble Space Telescope
servicing mission.
-Columbia, Houston, we're going to be
handing over to TDRSS West,
courtesy of the folks in Diego Garcia at the moment.
When we get AOS West,
until about 2010 will be intermittent calm,
and it's probably going to be deep off the tail,
so we may not be able to talk at all.
-Okay, Marty. I copy that.
However, I just want to compliment
all the folks out there at Diego Garcia and Garden Spot.
I've stopped by a couple of times
and appreciate the good work that they do for us out there.
-Copy, Scooter. I'm sure they appreciate it.
-The outer thermal cover on the airlock to Columbia
has been popped open.
The hatch will be rotated inward a moment from now.
And the hatch is now open as well,
the airlock down to vacuum.
John Grunsfeld and Rick Linnehan
preparing for the final spacewalk of this
Hubble-servicing mission.
And downlink television from the elbow camera
on Columbia's robot arm showing Rick Linnehan at the end
of the shuttle's Remote Manipulator System.
Scott Altman at the controls
from the aft flight deck of Columbia,
and you're looking at the helmet-mounted camera
on Rick Linnehan's helmet
as he works to disengage the bolts
and open up the aft shroud doors on the telescope one more time.
-Rick, seven turns. -Okay.
Starting turns.
-Columbia, Houston, good DD from Rick.
-There's one, two, three. -Seven turns, Mike?
-Four. -Confirm, seven turns.
-Five, six, seven turns.
I'll tell you when I'm in position.
-Okay.
I'm going to replace the pip pin, John.
-Rick Linnehan now working to remove retention pins
so that the final latch can pop open
and enable him to open up the aft shroud doors,
exposing the near infrared camera
and Multi-Object Spectrometer. -Okay.
I am bringing the handle latch open.
-Yeah. Here they come.
-Okay. -Okay.
-And the doors are open on the Hubble Space Telescope.
-Bringing down the left.
-Got the left. Are you clear?
-Scooter, bring me back in the bay, forward
to you, standby, John.
Forward -- Let's come 1 foot forward, please.
-Okay, copy. One foot forward.
Thanks.
-Okay, I'm clear, John. -Okay.
-You're good to open it.
Okay, all stop, Scooter.
-Take a peek inside. -I am right now, John.
I've got my floods on inside, and I'm looking.
It looks nice and clean.
-I don't see any floating debris at all.
-Concur. -Good pins.
-And, Rick, you'll want to reinstall the pip pin.
-Yeah. That's coming up, Mike.
-A good view of John Grunsfeld on the left
as the free-floating astronaut,
tethered both to the telescope as well as to the payload bay.
Rick Linnehan riding the end of the robot arm.
He will remain at the end of the through the installation
of the experimental cryocooler
in the aft shroud of the telescope,
right in front of the NICMOS scientific instrument.
We're about 3 minutes away from sailing into an orbital sunrise.
Columbia currently over the southern
Gulf Coast of the United States
at an altitude of 360 statue miles.
-And it's still here, the upper handle,
looks like about maybe 6 inches or so.
-Rick, you have about 2 feet on your head.
-Yeah, the head looks good.
-Okay, let's stop here for a moment, please.
-All right. Yeah, I've stopped.
John, we'll stop.
-Thank you. -Rick Linnehan is in the process
of removing the cryo vent line for the NICMOS instrument
and temporarily stowing it in a bag.
-Okay, Mike, if I have a go, I can start down.
-Go ahead.
-You're looking right into the Hubble Space Telescope.
On the left side is the near infrared camera
and Multi-Object Spectrometer.
On the right, right in front of Rick Linnehan
at the front of his helmet
is the space telescope imaging spectrograph.
-Okay. Thank you.
-Here we go. -Very good.
Nice job.
-Grunsfeld snaking the obsolete cryo vent valve
underneath a center handrail
to Rick Linnehan who is stowing it in a bag.
-Yeah, that is a lot of memory to it.
-I guess that would be called a serpent.
-Mm-hmm. A constrictor.
-Putting that on the step, please.
-Alpha three.
-Counterclockwise two.
-Ten decimal five.
-Okay.
-Six turns on the ground strap bolt.
-Roger that. -Okay, Rick.
Once you're comfortable, you can stow that bag on the stanchion.
-Yeah, it's aboard, Mike.
-Next up for John Grunsfeld and Rick Linnehan
will be the disengagement of the NICMOS ground strap
from the scientific instrument itself,
and the installation of the cryocooler
ground strap adapter on NICMOS.
-Standby. I bumped it down to two.
-Grunsfeld and Linnehan now 1 hour,
16 minutes into this morning's spacewalk.
They will spend the morning as electricians and plumbers
to help revive this dormant scientific instrument.
-Ten point five. -Good settings.
Extension fully extended, and now it's complete,
and I'm going to stow this in front for a second.
-Thanks, buddy.
Okay, Scooter, we need to come down
into the bay, please, 2 feet. -Copy that.
I was just about to ask for a GCA.
-Thanks, man.
Okay, all stop, please.
-All stop.
-Okay, opening up the cover, Mike.
-Copy, Rick. -And there she be.
-Rick Linnehan has opened up the cover to the enclosure
in which the NICMOS cryocooler is located,
and the second axial carrier,
the centermost cargo-carrying compartment
in Columbia's cargo bay.
-As a reminder,
tether before the last bolt. -Okay.
How many bolts? Four, right?
-Affirmative. -Okay.
Scooter, if you could take me down in the bay,
please, 6 inches.
-Once Linnehan receives the cryocooler,
he will open up two bypass valves
that ultimately will allow the neon gas
to flow into the NICMOS instrument.
-...down here.
-Okay, I see a piece of debris floating out of the NCC.
Scooter, bring me out from the bay, please, 6 inches.
-Coming. -Heading to the aft shroud.
-It looks like a small piece of tie wrap
or something that was inside, and I've caught it.
I don't have a trash bag. Going to hold onto it
until I can get back around to the workstation.
-If you hold it for about 1 minute, I can get it.
-Okay, I'll hold onto it for you.
-Mike, I've got it fixed under harness,
and there's a picture of it.
Looks like, like I said,
a piece of the standard white tie-down material
they used in the suits or to hold down cables.
-Okay, Rick.
We're trying to get a look at that,
and, John, you can go sew the harness on the station
and retrieve that piece of FOB.
-Wilco. -And verify the --
-You doing okay there, buddy? -Yeah.
I'd like to have this off when I get a chance.
-Yeah. Wilco.
-Thanks.
-John Grunsfeld on the upper left with the red stripes
on his suit retrieving
that small piece of debris from Rick Linnehan.
It will be stowed in a bag.
No issue there.
Linnehan now working to begin to disengage a series of bolts
holding the NICMOS cryocooler in its compartment.
-Hold on, Mike.
Can you move your PTT? -Yep.
-Okay. I'm going to fold down my mini workstation.
-Okay.
-And I'm going to come up over you.
-Okay, Mike, third bolt untethered.
I'm going for the fourth bolt.
-Ten-four. -Okay, Rick.
-Once this fourth bolt is disengaged,
Linnehan will be able to remove the cryocooler
and open up two bypass valves from which the neon gas
will be able to circulate from the cryocooler into the NICMOS
instrument once it's all hooked up.
-Four, five, six.
-Once that is complete, Linnehan,
holding onto the new cryocooler,
will be able to be maneuvered by commander Scott Altman,
who's operating the robot arm this morning,
up to the aft shroud of the telescope
to begin the installation process.
-Sure did, Mike. -Alpha two.
-Okay, all stop, please.
-All stop, exactly a foot. -And I'm ready to remove, Mike.
-Copy, Rick. -Okay, Scooter.
Ready for motion to the telescope.
-Copy, going to install. -NICMOS is out of
it's cargo carrier as Rick Linnehan
now will be transported back up to the aft shroud
of the Hubble Space Telescope to begin the installation.
The cryocooling device will again be installed
in front of the NICMOS scientific instrument itself,
and once an associated external radiator is hooked up,
this cryocooler, which is an experimental device,
will be activated, and will spin up a turbine engine
at about 400,000 revolutions per minute to circulate neon gas,
chilling the infrared detectors of the dormant NICMOS.
-They just said yesterday
that they finally got the layout right.
-And --
-Open, cleared from the A site.
-Okay.
Both valves open and on their Velcro keepers.
-Great work, Rick. -Okay.
I'm going to come down to you, John.
-Fine. -John Grunsfeld now atop
the manipulator foot restraint
at the end of the shuttle's robot arm
as he and Rick Linnehan prepare to maneuver
their way down to the MULE,
the Multi-use Lightweight Equipment Carrier,
just behind Linnehan,
who's wearing the pure white suit on the right side.
Grunsfeld, of course, at the end of the arm,
wearing the suit bearing the red stripes,
where they will begin the work to open up the compartment
housing the radiator for the NICMOS cryocooler
repair work this morning.
-I'm ready to start motion. -Okay, and just a reminder,
when we get back there, it'll be station 135
right, blue plate, 90 left.
-Thank you.
-Rick, I see you on your way to the MULE.
-Heading over there, Jim. -John, you're on your way.
-Thank you.
-Rick, do you have the small,
small paddle from the down strap?
-When he clears the top, to come back left?
-Yep. I'm clear to come back.
-I have that small, small paddle, John.
-Okay. -Do you need it?
-It's part of my fishing gear.
When you get there, you can just come over
and get it to me, okay?
-This view from the helmet-mounted camera
for John Grunsfeld
now as he is being lowered down to the cargo compartment
to retrieve this radiator 13 feet high
that will be mounted on handrails
on the side of the Hubble Space Telescope
to work in concert with the new cryocooling device
which has been installed in the aft shroud of the telescope,
just in front of the NICMOS instrument.
-Wow. -Incredible planet we live on.
-Mm-hmm. -Okay.
Looks like you got it now.
-Okay, good. -Okay.
Coming away from the MULE aft.
-Coming slowly away. -Yep.
Okay, I'm going to start to rotate it.
-Okay, John. -You ready?
-Yeah, standby. -Okay, rotating.
-Okay.
-And we see good clearance. -Thanks, Rick.
-Thanks, Jim.
-Good clearance for the radiator.
-How is the mast handling, John? -I don't know.
I haven't had to do anything yet.
It's fine.
Ah, I get to see the FRCS, the zero panel.
-Looks like a big surfboard, John.
-And that's having a good config now for all of your motion.
-Okay.
-Once we're forward to the telescope, I'll do my footplate.
-Okay, and I'll be rolling you upright
and bringing you forward now.
-Very good. Thank you.
-Columbia 360 miles above the earth as John Grunsfeld
is being maneuvered with the 13-foot-high radiator
to be bolted onto the side, or actually, latched onto the side
of the Hubble Space Telescope
in the area between the compartment
housing the NICMOS scientific instrument
and the fixed-head star trackers on the observatory.
Columbia currently traveling over
the northern coast of South America,
moving from northwest to southeast,
about to cross the equator.
-Nance, when we get over the paysite,
that's probably a good time to stop, and I'll do my turn.
-You bet. -I've stepped clear of the door.
-Copy. -I agree, John.
You're looking good with the door clearance.
You can come in laterally.
-And look clear over the top of the A-site?
Make sure I do.
-You've got pretty good clearance.
I wouldn't mind if you came up another foot or two.
-Okay. -That's better.
-Okay, him. Yeah, I was watching him.
-Yeah, I'm sorry, Nance.
-Depending on where his hands are to the right edge --
-I think if you maintain it like that, son,
you've got good clearance. -Okay.
-And Nancy can -- She'll handle the rest for you.
Don't go up any higher with it, though, because --
-Yeah, and he's got about... -Yeah, he's got about 3 feet.
-...2 1/2, 3 feet to the --
-Okay, great. Thank you.
-Looking great, Rick.
Hanging on the side of the Hubble.
-Okay, Nancy, let me do my turn here, if I could.
-Okay. It's stopped.
-Okay.
-Like a Hubble bug. -Okay.
I see it swinging around. Nicely done.
-Okay.
-Bottom is coming out a little bit.
-Yeah, I'm doing my footplate turn.
-There you go.
-You did a good job with tethering the door.
It's nice and snug.
-Nance, verify, do you want me 30 right?
-Can confirm 30 right. I see you at 30 right.
-Thank you.
I'm ready for motion.
-Rick Linnehan on the left.
He is tethered to the telescope and to the payload bay.
John Grunsfeld is now in the process of continuing
to be maneuvered for the alignment of the radiator
to the face of the telescope where the 13-foot-high radiator
will be latched in place on handrails
on the outside of the aft shroud.
-You're good. Okay.
Coming in, that looks nice.
Correcting.
-There are a series of latches up and down the radiator
which will fit over handrails
that you can see along the side of the aft shroud,
both at the bottom of the aft shroud
and at the very top of the aft shroud.
Again, you can see the closed door over the NICMOS instrument,
the near infrared camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer,
about to receive a radiator to complement
the newly installed experimental cryocooler
in an effort to bring it back into operation.
-Your reading, John, is open NCS,
radiator handrail and 1N2 latches.
Install the radiator over the HST latches, handrail.
-Copy. -Nicely now.
-Once the radiator is installed by Grunsfeld and Linnehan
on the side of the telescope, they will then press
into the power cable installation for the cryocooler,
as well as the installation of a series of heaters
for the cooling system as well.
There are several lines
through which the neon gas will be circulating,
and other accompanying plumbing and electrical cables
that the crew will then start to snake through the aft bulkhead
of the Hubble Space Telescope to electrically mate
the cryocooler itself with the radiator
and it's associated electronics box,
which is mounted in front of the advance camera for surveys
just to the other side of the fixed-head star trackers.
-If you can come over to your left,
or starboard, a bit more, and then back into the bay.
-Okay. Nancy is still taking me there.
-Okay. Great.
I'll shut up, and when we get to the numbers
we can do a better job aligning.
-Okay, thanks. -Okay, once you get yours on
and just let me know and when you're ready.
-Nancy, let's stop here. -All stop.
-This is the view from the helmet-mounted camera
on Rick Linnehan as he visually guides John Grunsfeld
for the alignment of the radiator
against the face of the aft shroud of the telescope.
-Nance, if you could bring me up about 6 inches,
and we'll start with that.
-And that'll be up 6? -Yep.
That was me. That was me, Nancy.
Thank you.
-Grunsfeld now beginning to engage the latches
on one of the handrails
on top of the aft shroud of the telescope.
You're looking right down, the same view
that John Grunsfeld has of this 13-foot-high radiator.
John Grunsfeld on the right, wearing the suit
with the red stripes at the end of the robot arm.
Rick Linnehan to his left in the pure white suit,
now in place to begin the mating of all of the connectors
on that conduit that was snaked through the bottom
of the Hubble Space Telescope.
-Four, five, six, seven.
-It just keeps pushing me right out.
-Yep. -I got a hand on your purse.
-Astronaut Rick Linnehan here
on the right assisting John Grunsfeld
as they complete the installation of the radiator
harnesses to the NICMOS cooling system.
-Okay, Mike, I think I can do it without the footplate.
-Okay. -Thanks.
-Grunsfeld being maneuvered to the NICMOS cooling system
diode box where he'll be enabling several switches.
-I just wanted to give you --
-This view from the elbow camera of the shuttle's robotic arm.
-Okay.
No more up there. Seal the aft.
-I copy. Thanks again.
-Thank you.
-This view of the new radiator, the NICMOS radiator,
that will cool the NICMOS system.
-Thanks, Nance.
-This view from the elbow camera on the shuttle's robotic arm.
-John Grunsfeld on the shuttle's robotic arm.
Below him, Rick Linnehan.
-You can only take the aft sail?
-Straight up. -Thank you.
-And if you can look down and verify your clearance to Rick,
or maybe we can keep --
-Yep, we're getting pretty close to --
-That's what I figured.
-And also need to stop. -Yeah.
It is stopped.
-Thank you. -Now 5 hours and 8 minutes
into this fifth space walk of the mission.
-Rick, the arm is right behind you.
-The two space walkers have successfully
installed a NICMOS cryocooler and a radiator,
all part of the cooling system.
This experimental system designed to keep
that infrared instrument very, very cold.
-Apply some pressure, okay?
-Okay. Standby, John.
I'll hand you the little key, the bottom.
-Okay, I have it, John. -Okay, you have it?
-All right.
-Grunsfeld handing his tools off to Linnehan,
who will put them inside Columbia's airlock.
Grunsfeld now coming off the shuttle's robotic arm.
-Okay. Release on my mark.
Three, two, one, mark.
We are released. -Open.
-Okay. Let's bring it down, Rick.
-Okay, coming down. -Slow.
-Yep. Got it, John?
-Yep, I got it too. -Okay.
-Manipulator foot restraint now released
from the shuttle's robotic arm and will be stowed.
This view provided by a camera
on the end effector of the shuttle's robot arm.
-Okay, I got my -- -Hello.
Stay to the right.
-For some reason I'm blinded, so I hope it's a good view.
-Okay.
We're up here on Columbia on STS-109.
We've just finished 5 days of spacewalking.
We've given Hubble a new power system.
It'll take it off into the next decade of discovery.
We've given it new eyes to see deeper into the universe
than it's ever been able to see before,
and I think you'll see that people at the Space Telescope
Science Institute, universities all around the world,
amateur astronomers young and old
will be able to enjoy the beauty and inspiration
that these new pictures from Hubble will bring.
I'm convinced that the next -- incredible discovery from Hubble
is one that's probably months if not years away,
and the work that we'd done up here on Columbia
is just a small part of what has brought us
to the point of being able to make those discoveries.
Part of it, though, is the people,
and it's people up here servicing spacecraft like Hubble
that's been able to make it better
that's really the incredible story,
and although there's seven of us on orbit,
there's a huge team on the ground
at the Goddard Space Flight Center,
Space Telescope Science Institute,
also Aerospace Wales, Orbital, Lockheed Martin,
United Space Alliance, the list goes on and on
with maybe thousands of people who have worked on this mission,
tens of thousands to get Columbia
into the wonderful state it's in for us to go to orbit.
The other remarkable thing is that we're outside in a vacuum
right now in our own little spaceship.
I think Rich has a few words to say about the folks
that have helped us get these spacesuits out here.
-John, I was thinking about that all day.
This is the first, well, the third time now
that I've been out in space.
There may be a [Indistinct] that something I can build,
a future apparatus or equipment like this
that allows humans to come out into the most --
the harshest environment imaginable and function
and work almost as if we didn't have a suit on.
After all, working in the EMU,
it almost becomes like a second skin, an exoskeleton,
and it's just amazing what you can do here and also the view.
I just still can't believe that I'm here,
and I've got to spend this time in space
with six other just fantastic people,
and there's no way we could've accomplished this mission
without those people, just an amazing crew
and just a wonderful experience.
And I guess for a little kind of lighter note
or comic relief here, this is a true story.
My physics professor, or my physics teacher in high school,
he's listening.
He used to tell me that the only thing I would ever be good
at was taking up space, so I guess I made it big-time.
Thanks.
-Well, HST is definitely an icon of science
but also the peaceful use of space,
and for all the people above us on planet Earth,
may there be peace on Earth and thanks very much
for helping us with an STS-109.
Hope to be back.
Thank you.
-And from the flight deck, John and Rick
and all the EVA team and the support,
we just want to echo the same thing.
It's been a great mission so far,
and there's more work ahead of us.
I know it's going to continue to be an outstanding success.
And as a tribute to a large portion of our support team,
we have a little something for them.
♪♪
-So thanks to Dana and Tomas
and all the other folks who helped us on all these EVAs.
-And Columbia Houston, with that,
it's time for the Orbit 1 team
to go outside as the EVA crew heads inside.
We'll get to see daylight for a change,
and you guys did fantastic work.
The choreography was outstanding throughout,
except for some of the downlink music,
but having said that,
we appreciate the work you've done.
You've helped science along tremendously,
and we'll leave you in the good hands of Steve and Tony
in the Orbit 2 team. Thanks a lot.
It's been a pleasure working with you,
especially through these EVAs.
We'll catch you tomorrow.
-Let's get an eye up on the flight deck,
and we copied, and I just wanted
to say thanks again to Leslie and Mark
who did such a great job on the RMS positions.
And hopefully the EVA guys
down there were happy with our support.
We really enjoyed working with the whole team too,
and we're really looking forward to tomorrow.
-And from the mid-deck, thanks, Mary, to you and the whole team
for supporting us through these EVAs.
We really enjoyed it. It was an awesome experience.
-And, Mike, you understand now
why everybody talks so highly of it.
Appreciate that. We'll catch you tomorrow.
-Okay.
We have an Internet question we'd like to answer,
and it's directed toward Rick Linnehan,
who is fresh from space outside the spaceship.
This is from Craig A. Newsbaum
from Canyon Country, California, age 36, and he asks,
"To the space walkers, mainly one of the new guys
like Rick, how does the real thing
compare to training in the underwater chamber?"
-Well, Craig, hi, this is Rick,
and we just got in from our third space walk tonight,
and the big thing I noticed mainly is,
when I come in is, I'm not wet.
Usually, when we train in the NBL,
which is called the Neutral Buoyancy Lab,
it's a huge swimming pool,
probably the biggest swimming pool in the world
I think, as far as I know, and we train in mock-ups
of the suits similar to what we wear outside,
but we're supported by a bunch of people in scuba equipment
who help us and service the equipment and move us around
and try to simulate what happens in space.
And it's so realistic that the first time I was out there,
I kept looking around expecting to see divers' faces
pop up everywhere, but that never happened luckily.
-Okay, Rick, and you did a great job out there today,
and you mentioned
how you got a good look at Columbia from outside.
Now I know that this is your third flight on Columbia,
and it's perhaps a record
for flying aboard the oldest space ship,
the older space orbiter that we have.
What was it like being on the outside
finally when you were crammed inside for two missions?
-A lot more space.
There was just an incredible sense of,
"Wow, I can't believe I'm here."
First I turn around and there's the Hubble Space Telescope,
and I turn around the other direction
and I'm looking in the windows
that I just looked out maybe an hour or so ago,
and there's all my friends and crewmates in there looking back.
And it's kind of a surreal experience,
especially being part of this Hubble crew,
getting to work on probably the most important
scientific instrument ever created.
-All right.
Well, you know what was interesting to me, Rick,
was watching you guys outside in the few times
I was out at the MBL
watching you guys working on the equipment.
I was wondering how accurate the training equipment
is compared to when you're out there on Hubble.
Does Hubble throw you any surprises
that you hadn't seen in training
or that the trainers and the scenario-builders for simulators
and such hadn't thought of?
-Well, first, Digger, I've got to tell you
that the people involved in Hubble, the trainers,
the people who made the mock-ups and all the replicas of Hubble
and such that we work with did an amazing job,
so much so that it's kind of like...
I don't know.
Sometimes when I'm out there, I can flash back
and feel like I'm in the water or out in space.
It's that good.
There are changes of course in space.
Today we had some peculiarities.
That's a tough one to say.
Some peculiarities.
-Lips are still cold from space.
-I'm still a little dry from coming in,
but the cables were a bit stiffer and colder.
And so yeah, when you're out here,
some things are affected by the cold and vacuum
that normally wouldn't be when you're training.
-Well, Rick, I got to tell you, and to the folks back home,
Rick and I have been out riding motorcycles
a few times together, and I knew --
-He never fell off.
-I knew the first time I went riding with Rick,
and it was kind of a cold day, and he didn't have a windshield,
and I was fully bundled up with my big windshield
and he was hanging in there for,
what was that about a 5-hour ride?
-Yeah. -I knew if he could hack that,
that space would be no problem.
-That's because you didn't know how fast I was going.
-And that's all for the Digger show today.
I hope you enjoyed our guest.
-He almost didn't let me say goodbye, but so long, everyone.
-Columbia, Houston for Scooter. -Go ahead, Houston.
-Scooter, we're now ready for the PSP bypass,
and in addition, when you're ready for the PMC,
we can start that, too. -Okay.
Let me go check how our OCA looks.
-Hubble Space Telescope coming into view.
Looking up the length of the Hubble Space Telescope,
two new solar arrays.
You can see the South Atlantic Ocean being reflected.
Columbia currently just passing off
the southeastern coast of Argentina,
moving out into the South Atlantic Ocean.
That round black object is the dish on the high gain.
♪♪
-♪ Who made who? ♪
♪ Who made you? ♪
♪ Who made who? ♪
♪ Ain't nobody told you ♪
♪ Who made who? ♪
♪ Who made you? ♪
♪ If you made them ♪
♪ And they made you ♪
♪ Who picked up the bill? ♪
♪ And who made who? ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
♪ Who made who? ♪
-Good morning, Columbia.
Digger, that was for you from Cheryl.
Of course, it was "Who Made Who" by AC/DC.
Now we know that you got the shorts and the white socks.
We just hope that your air guitar
made it down to the Cape in time for late stowage.
Good morning.
-Houston Columbia, for the Internet.
-Go ahead, John. -Is this a good time?
-Now is a great time, John.
-From Robert White in Carroll, Ohio, his question is,
"Are the suits used for space walking still custom-made
for the individual crew member as they were
in the Apollo missions and early shuttle missions?"
Robert, the suits are not custom-made anymore.
In fact, they come in a few sizes,
and each of the parts of the suit,
like the arms and legs and boots and gloves,
have adjustments on them.
And so we are able to find a good fit for the suits
by picking and choosing the right suit parts.
Everybody on this mission was in a large part upper torso,
but each of us had different sized lower torso assemblies,
gloves and arms.
-Columbia, Houston and HST folks are happy.
They've gotten everything they've needed.
Excellent job for keeping us informed
and keeping things well-documented video-wise.
You're the producer-director.
Next video is your call.
-In case he's still with us,
we're going to go up to the grapple now.
-Copy, we have the model to assist us in our view.
-A good grapple of the Hubble Space Telescope confirmed.
Nancy Currie working with Mike Massimino
at the aft flight deck of Columbia.
Massimino responsible for the grapple
and the unbirthing of the telescope.
Nancy Currie will be responsible
for the deployment of the telescope
less than 3 hours from now.
Robot arm operator Nancy Currie on the left.
John Grunsfeld, the prime space walker, on the right,
and Duane Carey now floating into the field of view.
-...payloads.
-Yes, Digger, John, excuse me.
-Hey, Mario.
Camera setup is complete, and HST umbilical disconnect
and power transfer prechecks are complete.
We're waiting on your go for detonation umbilical
on step three.
-Roger that. We're working on it.
-Thank you, Mario.
-John Grunsfeld running through the checklist
from the aft flight deck of Columbia in preparation
for the disconnection of the external umbilical,
which has provided orbiter power for the Hubble Space Telescope
for the past 6 days.
This is Mission Control Houston,
the Hubble Space Telescope now on this downlink television
from payload bay cameras in Columbia,
at the end of the shuttle's 50-foot-long robot arm,
under the control of robot arm operator Nancy Currie.
Hubble now in its deploy orientation.
Its brand-new solar arrays parallel
to the body of the telescope.
You're looking at the face of the telescope,
those two oval-shaped objects and the circular dark object
above the three fixed-head star trackers.
-The Hubble in position.
We're ready for our maneuver, if you concur.
-And Columbia, Houston, copy.
We're go for the maneuver.
It should take about 30 minutes, and we have good TV
for imagery through the rest of the west pass.
-Okay, Houston. Roger that.
-Commander Scott Altman now will begin a 30-minute maneuver
to place Columbia in the proper orientation itself
for the deployment of the telescope.
Again, you're looking at the face of the telescope
along the aft shroud of the observatory
were the three fixed-head star trackers, now in this view.
Another view from another one of the payload bay cameras
showing the two high-gain antennas
deployed in the correct orientation,
perpendicular to the body of the telescope.
The 43 1/2-foot observatory refurbished and upgraded,
ready for its deployment to fly free once again
just 1 hour and 2 minutes from now.
A good view of the 43 1/2-foot high observatory,
poised at the end of the shuttle's robot arm
for deployment at 4:04 a.m. Central time.
-Columbia, Houston, you're go for HST release.
-Copy, Houston. Go for release.
Thank you.
-So after five servicing space walks
totaling more than 35 hours,
by two teams of space walkers on the fourth
servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope,
the observatory is ready to fly free once again
to resume its scientific observations.
Deployment confirmed.
The robot arm backing away from the Hubble Space Telescope.
Applause in the Space Telescope Operations Control Center.
The refurbished, more powerful Hubble Space Telescope
flying free once again,
ready to resume its voyage of discovery.
And the first separation burn is now underway.
Columbia departing the Hubble Space Telescope,
not to be revisited for the next 2 1/2 years.
-We have a beautiful view of Mr. Hubble the Telescope
over the Earth's horizon,
ready to go and make new discoveries.
And from the crew of STS-109,
we bid the Hubble well on its new journey
with its new tools to explore the universe.
Good luck, Mr. Hubble.
-And we wish it well from down here as well, John.
Thanks for the words.
Columbia, Houston, I think you'd be happy to know
that HST has transitioned to normal mode.
-Yes, that's great to know, Mario.
Thank you.
-That call indicating that all of Hubble's systems are now up
and running under the guidance
of the Space Telescope Operations Control Center
at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland,
now in full command of all of Hubble activity.
So with Hubble flying free, once again under the control
of the telescope engineers at Goddard,
the shuttle portion of this mission with Hubble
has now come to an end, and the shuttle astronauts
can now turn their attention to the rest of their flight
and a landing on Tuesday morning predawn
at the Kennedy Space Center.
-Columbia, Houston, we have a good view
of Hubble from down here.
Thanks for the downlink. You're right.
It is an ooh-ah picture.
-Scooter, Dana is on. -Okay.
Copy that.
Dana, this is Scooter,
just wanted to talk to you for a minute.
-Great, Scooter. -And, Dana, hey,
I just wanted to pass to you and Tomas, Christy,
the whole team but especially you three,
how tremendously happy we are with the training we got
and just how that we couldn't have done it without you,
how much we appreciate all your work.
-You guys did an excellent job. You made us very proud.
A lot of smiling faces here.
All the HST folks have been sitting on the loops,
expressing their thanks to everyone down here
and especially to you guys up there.
-And, Dana, if you could pass on to Tomas
in particular from Mike and I,
we'd like to say the grasshopper on board has graduated.
-Copy that, Jim.
-And, Dana, I can't express to you how much all of your help
and the folks that are in your back room
have helped us to get to the point
that we just deployed a Hubble with a whole set of new tools,
and all the time that we spent together
working on making this mission a success with the whole team.
It's just incredible that we've gone through
this last 5 EVA days
with all the support we have and to making it all work.
-I echo your thoughts on that. It's been amazing.
-And just to close, speaking of amazing,
the uplink of the press conference
has really kept us up to speed,
and we've really enjoyed watching.
So thanks again for everything, including the press conferences.
You've been great.
-They've been a real joy for us.
We really look forward to that part.
-That's affirmative, Nancy,
and with you guys passing overhead Houston
in tandem with HST, we're going to declare a forced LOS.
And with all the COEs closed throughout the mission,
we think it's appropriate that we do so.
So be sure and wave as you go by.
-You bet, Mario, and before you goes, just real quick,
we want to really thank Leslie Hannon and Mark Litsky
for all the hard work they did on the arm.
We haven't been able to talk to them very much this flight,
but for an arm operator, this was a dream flight,
and we really enjoyed it.
Mike did a great job, and Scooter did a fantastic job
backing me up on EVA,
and from all three of us to Jeff Sugar,
he was the best instructor,
and we can't thank him enough.
-Copy, Nancy.
Quote, "You made it look easy for them."
-Thanks for the Run-DMC-advised word.
-Copy, Scooter.
You got one laughing console to my right.
-And from Mike to Jeff and Mark and the whole gang down there,
thanks very much for putting up with me
and sticking through the training flow with me.
I sure appreciate all your hard work.
Thanks. -Thanks, Mike.
We'll pass that along to the training folks.
Appreciate it.
-Well, let's talk first about the deployment.
How did it go? -Hey, good morning, Claudette.
It just went picture-perfect.
It was really a beautiful sight to watch
Hubble leave us as Nancy Currie detached it from the arm
and we let it float away as we did our separation burns,
just tremendous.
-I know that the focus has been on repairs to the Hubble.
Just how difficult has that been,
and what have you improved on the Hubble telescope?
-Well, for the EVA team,
we were a little sad to see the telescope go.
We spent 5 days out in the payload bay of Columbia
doing our repairs,
and we installed a new power system on Hubble
that'll carry it into the next decade
and installed an advanced camera for surveys.
It's the new eye of Hubble that's a super camera,
and it's got a large area detector that'll allow it to see
to the edge of the visible universe
and improve our knowledge of our universe, our backyard.
The repairs were hard in some cases,
and some things went really smooth.
And we were just lucky to get it all done,
and I hope do it well.
-How do you sleep up there? -Hi, Allie.
Well, we have little sleeping bags that we roll out.
You know, you're floating up here all the time,
so really you're not sleeping in them
but you're sort of floating inside of them,
and they help kind of keep you in one place
so you don't float around the cabin
while you're sleeping and bump into people or switches.
It's actually pretty good sleep.
-Nancy Currie, I have a question for you.
There's a lot of young ladies in this audience down here.
What does it take for a young woman
to become an astronaut such as yourself?
-Well, if you look around NASA,
not only the shuttle but the control center
or any of the NASA centers,
you'll see women well-represented
in any of the disciplines, and all it takes
is a lot of hard work and study math and science,
and just whatever you put your mind to
and dedicate your life to, you can succeed.
-How does it feel to be weightless?
-Well, you can see us up here right now.
We're kind of just floating up and down,
and when people ask me that,
the best way to describe for people on Earth
what it feels like to be weightless
is if you've ever been in a swimming pool
and just bob around.
It's almost like swimming except you're in air,
then you float everywhere. It's a lot of fun.
-You guys set a record 35 hours of space
walks in the past 5 days.
What was that like?
-Well, I'm just going to answer for the entire crew in that
all of us kept very busy during those space walks,
not only the folks outdoors but the people inside,
Nancy driving the arm, watching what's going on,
making sure we had all the photo documentation.
There was -- the guys who are not outside doing the space
walks were inside tracking along, following procedures
and instructing the space walkers
on what to do, what settings to use,
so it's just been a very intense 9 days on concentrated effort.
-Would you tell us who your greatest role model is and why?
-Greatest role model?
-Well, my biggest role model is my father.
He worked very, very hard when I was a kid,
and that was a good role model for me to also work hard
and helped me to become an astronaut.
-Does space really look as beautiful
as the pictures we see?
-If you can believe it, after my first mission,
the first thing that I said is that no film in the world
can capture how truly beautiful the world
is as we look out the window.
It is incredibly awesome,
and we would like to capture on film,
but unfortunately film just doesn't do it justice.
The pictures are beautiful that we bring home,
but it's even more beautiful up here.
-Is there any lingering concern about that cooling system,
and how gratified are you that you got through the week?
-Well, you know, there's always the concern
that something could change, but we are incredibly happy
and grateful that we were able to stay up here.
There was a lot of concern a week ago,
and it's great to now be able to look back
and see how much that's turned around
and what a success the mission has become.
-John Grunsfeld's suit sprung a leak, quite literally,
some of the cooling water that runs through it.
Jim, what went through your mind at that time?
Was there time to think, or did you just get
the towels out and get to it?
-The first thing that went through my mind
is to immediately let everybody know
that we weren't going to be going out
in the next few minutes as we thought we were going to
and that we needed to assess the situation
so we could get Houston on board with us as part of a team
to help us make some good decisions
about where to go next.
I was sure we weren't going out right away.
I was scared we wouldn't go out at all that day,
but Houston let us do a relatively quick turn
and press on with the EVA, which was very successful.
We're very grateful.
-Set your time line back by only a couple of hours,
no worse for the wear as a result.
Mike Massimino, a rookie astronaut,
rookie space walker obviously, were you at all nervous
on that first go-round being around a $2 billion telescope?
You know, you just don't want to break it
because if you break it, you own it, right?
-Well, yeah, I was a little nervous
and wondering what was going to happen,
but what made me feel better about it, Miles,
was I had a real good partner, my buddy with me out there.
I knew him and I can work well together.
That made me feel a lot better.
I knew I was going to have John and Rick
looking after us on the checklist inside and Scooter
and Digger watching us and Nancy flying me around on the arm
and, of course, all the folks down in mission control
looking after us,
so when I thought of it as a team effort,
that made me feel a lot better.
I knew the suits were good.
We were going to be safe in the suits,
and everyone was watching out for us,
so that made me feel better about it.
All that said though, I knew I really needed to be careful
that, you know, the actions that we were going to be taking out
there we're going to be important,
and we had to be real careful with every move to make sure
that we did the right thing, and as a result, we did,
and it was really just an incredible experience.
-Well, I know you've got to feel better
when you have guys with names like Scooter and Digger
running the show. Let's move it over to Nancy Currie,
who is running that 50-foot robotic arm.
Nancy is an army helicopter pilot,
which she says makes it easier for her to do her job.
What's it like though having a person on the end of that arm,
sort of like a human socket wrench, Nancy?
Is it a nerve-racking job, or do you sort of get into it,
and it becomes an extension of your arm, almost?
-Yeah, I think that's pretty well-said.
It really becomes an extension of me,
and John said it best the other day
that I was connected to the hand controllers,
which were manipulating the arm, which was connected to John,
which at one point was connected to Rick maneuvering him,
and if that didn't epitomize the team effort on this crew,
I'm not sure what did, throughout the entire mission.
-And Scooter, with that, the Orbit One team
is going to hand over to the Orbit Two team.
Steve and Tony and the rest of the Orbit
One team will take you the rest of the way.
Fantastic job today as with the rest
of the previous days of the mission.
You guys were superb throughout,
and it was a pleasure being here to watch it all unfold.
We'll catch you tomorrow.
-And, Mario, please pass to the whole control center again
just every day working with you guys has been a treat,
keeping us in sync, watching our back.
We appreciate it and have enjoyed.
We'll look forward to seeing you tomorrow
and working with Orbit Two now.
-Houston, Columbia, I think what'll be captured
in the rest of the images
you're going to see is what a busy time
we had on the flight deck this morning.
-Understand, Digger, and that's great.
-This is Mission Control Houston.
You're looking at video that was recorded earlier today
as the crew of Columbia
was preparing to deploy the Hubble Space Telescope.
The seven crew members aboard Columbia
have a quiet afternoon planned doing a bit of cleanup tasks
and some other light work that they need to get done.
They are scheduled to go to bed in just a little over 3 hours
at 11:52 a.m. Central Time.
Earlier this morning, a little after 4 at 4:04 a.m.
Central Time,
Columbia's crew deployed the Hubble Space Telescope
after having completed five very successful space
walks that upgraded all the systems on that telescope.
-I'd like to introduce Nancy Currie, MS2 on this flight,
and she's involved in everything we do.
You know, we have folks that primarily specialize in EVAs
and folks like Scooter
and I that primarily specialize in sitting in the front seat,
but Nancy swings between both crews,
and she's been busy the whole time.
Now we have a question for Nancy from the Internet.
It's from Marcello from Bronx, New York, age 26,
and Marcello asks, "As I understand it,
prior to your final approach with the Hubble,
you have to turn off the reaction jets on the shuttle
to prevent any blasting onto the satellite.
How are you able to fine-tune your approach to Hubble
without those jets?"
-Well, Marcello, that's a really good question, and in fact,
we use a term onboard the shuttle called low-Z,
and what that does is enable certain jets to not fire,
specifically not to prune the spacecraft.
We don't want to prune the spacecraft arrays
and cause any tumbling
or put any additional rates on the spacecraft,
and sure enough, when we made the Hubble approach, Scooter,
our commander was flying manually.
He did a fantastic job.
When it was all stable and ready for me to maneuver the arm,
we determined that between ourselves,
and then I maneuvered the arm over and grappled with it.
He made it really easy for me
because he just did a fantastic job with rendezvous.
-You know, Nancy, while I've got you here,
I couldn't help but notice during our training
that you have a peculiar philosophy in training.
Nancy likes to practice, and then she likes to practice,
and then she keeps practicing until she gets orbit,
and then I think she even practices in her sleep
before she actually does something.
What is your philosophy on accomplishing
difficult tasks like this mission?
-Well, Digger, I guess you said it best.
You can't have enough practice,
and, you know, you can always learn.
We have two folks on this flight,
Digger and Mike Massimino, who are rookies.
They're no longer rookies, but what they lend to a crew
is a new way of looking at things,
and they've just got a really unique way of looking at things,
and we learned a lot from Digger this flight.
-Yes, we've done a lot of difficult things
together on this flight,
but we have a couple more big ones to go, don't we?
-You bet. It's not over until it's over,
and we know that and the three of us on the flight deck,
and Rick will be riding along with us,
and he's just a tremendous help as MS1 for the entry,
and we all know we got a big day coming up,
and we're going to keep focused on that,
and it's not over until we all stop.
-Okay, Nancy, thanks a lot,
and that's it for the Internet questions for tonight.
-Columbia currently orbiting the Earth
over the Central Eastern Pacific Ocean,
just passing over the equator on a southeasterly track
that will take them over a central portion
of South America.
You're looking at the coast of northwestern Chile
from an altitude of 359 statute miles,
this view provided by camera in the forward section
of the payload bay of Columbia.
About to experience an orbital sunrise.