1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,770
After Hubble’s deployment in 1990.
Astronomers quickly realized there was a problem.

2
00:00:03,770 --> 00:00:06,639
The conclusion we've come to from
that is that there is a significant

3
00:00:06,639 --> 00:00:09,943
spherical aberration
appears to be present in the optics.

4
00:00:09,943 --> 00:00:13,546
...and that we should be able to fix it
in our insurance program.

5
00:00:13,546 --> 00:00:14,981
Chaos and confusion

6
00:00:14,981 --> 00:00:18,251
after the Hubble mission,
there were threats about shuttle

7
00:00:18,251 --> 00:00:21,921
coming to an end because NASA didn't
have the capability anymore.

8
00:00:21,921 --> 00:00:24,424
“And we have a go for main
engine start.”

9
00:00:24,424 --> 00:00:25,859
“Five, four, three, two...”

10
00:00:25,859 --> 00:00:27,594
We couldn't do this, we couldn’t do that,

11
00:00:27,594 --> 00:00:29,462
Hubble was a disaster.

12
00:00:29,462 --> 00:00:31,031
None of this was in the books.

13
00:00:31,031 --> 00:00:31,765
“Liftoff!

14
00:00:31,765 --> 00:00:35,335
Liftoff of the Space Shuttle Endeavour
on an ambitious mission to service

15
00:00:35,335 --> 00:00:45,478
the Hubble Space Telescope.”

16
00:00:45,478 --> 00:00:48,848
My boss on the Orbiting Astronomical Observatory,

17
00:00:48,848 --> 00:00:54,387
he said, “Look, I'm going to form a team
to design a new telescope.

18
00:00:54,387 --> 00:00:55,688
We already know
what we're going to call it.

19
00:00:55,688 --> 00:00:57,223
Just the large telescope.

20
00:00:57,223 --> 00:01:01,094
And I want you on that team,
and I want you to go work

21
00:01:01,094 --> 00:01:02,796
the mechanical system

22
00:01:02,796 --> 00:01:05,365
and figure out how we can take advantage of the new

23
00:01:05,365 --> 00:01:07,300
space shuttle program

24
00:01:07,300 --> 00:01:09,903
to see how we could launch it

25
00:01:09,903 --> 00:01:12,472
and maybe if necessary, repair it,

26
00:01:12,472 --> 00:01:14,507
and upgraded it.”

27
00:01:14,507 --> 00:01:17,277
And we built a full scale mockup over

28
00:01:17,277 --> 00:01:20,713
about a four year period from 70 to 74.

29
00:01:20,713 --> 00:01:24,517
And we came up with what was called
a modular concept.

30
00:01:24,517 --> 00:01:27,787
We designed the instruments
and stuff, the complicated parts

31
00:01:27,787 --> 00:01:30,790
of the spacecraft to be modular
so they could,

32
00:01:30,790 --> 00:01:34,961
interfaces could be simple,
the modules could slide in and out

33
00:01:34,961 --> 00:01:39,299
and be picked up
by the same standard interfaces.

34
00:01:39,299 --> 00:01:42,602
In 75, they picked a winner

35
00:01:42,602 --> 00:01:45,939
and the winner was Marshall Space
Flight Center and Lockheed.

36
00:01:45,939 --> 00:01:50,310
And so we were essentially
out of the business, other than to consult

37
00:01:50,310 --> 00:01:54,781
with them, with regards
to future servicing of Hubble.

38
00:01:54,781 --> 00:01:59,619
We were responsible for the instrument
development, which by that time

39
00:01:59,619 --> 00:02:03,156
we decided they were going to be
definitely modular instruments.

40
00:02:03,156 --> 00:02:05,625
So modularity
started to creep in the thing.

41
00:02:05,625 --> 00:02:09,496
And then the third aspect is
we were responsible after launch

42
00:02:09,496 --> 00:02:14,434
for flight operations of Hubble.
Right after the launch,

43
00:02:14,434 --> 00:02:17,904
and they discovered we had this aberration.

44
00:02:17,904 --> 00:02:20,540
I got approached by people
at headquarters saying, “Hey,

45
00:02:20,540 --> 00:02:23,977
would you be interested
in doing a servicing mission on Hubble?”

46
00:02:23,977 --> 00:02:25,778
And I said, “Yeah, we've been practicing.

47
00:02:25,778 --> 00:02:26,779
We were ready for that.”

48
00:02:26,779 --> 00:02:32,218
We had to figure out
what had caused the optical problem,

49
00:02:32,218 --> 00:02:34,954
and at that time there wasn't a sure
answer.

50
00:02:34,954 --> 00:02:38,558
What's caused the spherical aberration
and how bad is it?

51
00:02:38,558 --> 00:02:42,862
What are the optical constants
that would allow us to correct?

52
00:02:42,862 --> 00:02:45,665
So for six months

53
00:02:45,665 --> 00:02:50,637
from August on, we focused on the problem that one problem.

54
00:02:50,637 --> 00:02:52,205
“Three years later...”

55
00:02:52,205 --> 00:02:56,776
We, indeed a privileged crew
to be able to fly on this mission.

56
00:02:56,776 --> 00:03:00,647
We have had some of the most intensive
and extensive training

57
00:03:00,647 --> 00:03:04,784
that I have ever experienced
in preparation for a spaceflight.

58
00:03:04,784 --> 00:03:08,688
That started with crew members
being named early and continued

59
00:03:08,688 --> 00:03:14,027
with the use of resources and facilities
that had not been used before

60
00:03:14,027 --> 00:03:17,897
in the development of the plan
and in the training of crew members.

61
00:03:17,897 --> 00:03:20,433
We have trained to be able to work
with different people.

62
00:03:20,433 --> 00:03:22,302
We have also done a lot of training...

63
00:03:22,302 --> 00:03:24,604
...the differences
between the kinds of training...

64
00:03:24,604 --> 00:03:27,640
...we'd be very happy to stick with what
we've been training to do for a while...

65
00:03:27,640 --> 00:03:32,845
...indebted to the tool folks here at JSC
and up at Goddard for not only giving us

66
00:03:32,845 --> 00:03:37,116
the tools that are very EVA friendly, but
actually modifying some existing tools.

67
00:03:37,116 --> 00:03:38,518
As we went through training...

68
00:03:38,518 --> 00:03:41,521
The astronauts figure out things,

69
00:03:41,521 --> 00:03:43,089
they see things,

70
00:03:43,089 --> 00:03:46,693
they figure out what to do
in case something happens

71
00:03:46,693 --> 00:03:47,994
if it's not going right

72
00:03:47,994 --> 00:03:50,096
they figure out what to do.

73
00:03:50,096 --> 00:03:54,834
Training opens your mind up
to doing things other than what

74
00:03:54,834 --> 00:03:58,504
you would normally do if you had to have
a reverse way of doing it.

75
00:03:58,504 --> 00:04:01,040
If you couldn't do it
the way that it was planned

76
00:04:01,040 --> 00:04:02,342
here's another way to do it.

77
00:04:02,342 --> 00:04:07,780
There was always this part
about training and testing

78
00:04:07,780 --> 00:04:12,619
and so on that allows you to
to find the other alternatives.

79
00:04:12,619 --> 00:04:14,320
These missions didn't go perfectly.

80
00:04:14,320 --> 00:04:16,155
Day one. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

81
00:04:16,155 --> 00:04:17,423
No, no, no, no.

82
00:04:17,423 --> 00:04:21,294
Almost every day was a horrendous fear
challenge.

83
00:04:21,294 --> 00:04:24,430
We didn't plan for failure per se.

84
00:04:24,430 --> 00:04:25,565
We planned for,

85
00:04:25,565 --> 00:04:27,800
what if this didn't work?

86
00:04:27,800 --> 00:04:29,602
What if that didn't work?

87
00:04:29,602 --> 00:04:31,671
What would be the back-arounds

88
00:04:31,671 --> 00:04:35,775
to augmenting that failure
or leaving that failure alone

89
00:04:35,775 --> 00:04:37,243
and just going past it?

90
00:04:37,243 --> 00:04:38,111
And we did have that.

91
00:04:38,111 --> 00:04:43,383
We did have back-arounds
for almost every one of our EVA

92
00:04:43,383 --> 00:04:47,353
missions. That if we didn't do this,

93
00:04:47,353 --> 00:04:51,057
we would immediately skip and go over here to this while

94
00:04:51,057 --> 00:04:53,926
the engineers on the ground
would figure out what to do there.

95
00:04:53,926 --> 00:04:56,729
We would not allow ourselves
to think of failure.

96
00:04:56,729 --> 00:05:00,867
Now, every one of our missions,
100% successful. 

97
00:05:00,867 --> 00:05:06,205
Every mission led to three
or four more years of future missions.

98
00:05:06,205 --> 00:05:09,776
Eventually, the astronauts
and the water tanks,

99
00:05:09,776 --> 00:05:13,313
They got so comfortable
with working with our mockups and stuff

100
00:05:13,313 --> 00:05:17,984
that they began to ask us
for help on things like servicing Station.

101
00:05:17,984 --> 00:05:20,486
So we were able to develop and change

102
00:05:20,486 --> 00:05:22,522
some of the tools, varied, the tools,

103
00:05:22,522 --> 00:05:26,893
changed their design, so they would work on Space Station as well as Hubble.

104
00:05:26,893 --> 00:05:31,998
And so pretty soon a lot of the tools
that we were using initially on Hubble

105
00:05:31,998 --> 00:05:37,637
ended up being used predominantly on Space Station for Space Station servicing.

106
00:05:37,637 --> 00:05:41,941
And so that was a very important growth

107
00:05:41,941 --> 00:05:46,879
prospect there. It
gets back to this concept of enthusiasm,

108
00:05:46,879 --> 00:05:52,652
it gets back to this concept
of engineering management.

109
00:05:52,652 --> 00:05:55,021
And from an engineering perspective,

110
00:05:55,021 --> 00:05:58,458
you need basically

111
00:05:58,458 --> 00:06:00,326
to coalesce,

112
00:06:00,326 --> 00:06:04,931
to bring together a group of people with a common objective

113
00:06:04,931 --> 00:06:07,567
and keep those people together via

114
00:06:07,567 --> 00:06:10,603
communications, via large meetings,

115
00:06:10,603 --> 00:06:14,006
via whatever is necessary
to keep them going.

116
00:06:14,006 --> 00:06:17,443
Hubble “represents never say no.”

117
00:06:17,443 --> 00:06:20,246
If something is tough, go for it.

118
00:06:20,246 --> 00:06:22,915
If it's worthwhile doing,
go for it, dig in to it.

119
00:06:22,915 --> 00:06:26,419
Do not let “no” bother you.

120
00:06:26,419 --> 00:06:29,756
All these things, they can be solved.

121
00:06:29,756 --> 00:06:31,591
They can be solved.

122
00:06:31,591 --> 00:06:35,395
They can be solved if we make our minds up to go solve them.

123
00:06:35,395 --> 00:06:38,131
“1994 - one month after the mission”

124
00:06:38,131 --> 00:06:39,999
this mission.

125
00:06:39,999 --> 00:06:42,435
Success was no accident.

126
00:06:42,435 --> 00:06:45,037
We told our people across the board

127
00:06:45,037 --> 00:06:50,276
very succinctly
two things, that to be successful

128
00:06:50,276 --> 00:06:55,415
we were going to do testing,
testing, and retesting.

129
00:06:55,415 --> 00:06:58,885
And as you can see by the images,
they succeeded.

130
00:06:58,885 --> 00:07:02,088
We succeeded, the formula panned out.

131
00:07:02,088 --> 00:07:05,825
It's a formula which took 30 years
to develop here at Goddard.

132
00:07:05,825 --> 00:07:10,430
We've evolved from that point
to get even to a better technology today,

133
00:07:10,430 --> 00:07:14,167
and I think we move
on from here into the future.

134
00:07:14,167 --> 00:07:26,412
Servicing Mission 1 had five spacewalks.
With extensive training, all were successful.

135
00:07:26,412 --> 00:07:40,092
The lessons learned guided future servicing missions 
and influenced how we build and maintain structures in space.

136
00:07:40,092 --> 00:07:53,773
Thirty years later, Hubble continues making discoveries 
that change our understanding of the universe.

137
00:07:53,773 --> 00:08:05,518
Follow us on social media @NASAHubble