WEBVTT FILE

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After Hubble’s deployment in 1990.
Astronomers quickly realized there was a problem.

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The conclusion we've come to from
that is that there is a significant

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spherical aberration
appears to be present in the optics.

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...and that we should be able to fix it
in our insurance program.

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Chaos and confusion

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after the Hubble mission,
there were threats about shuttle

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coming to an end because NASA didn't
have the capability anymore.

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“And we have a go for main
engine start.”

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“Five, four, three, two...”

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We couldn't do this, we couldn’t do that,

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Hubble was a disaster.

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None of this was in the books.

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“Liftoff!

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Liftoff of the Space Shuttle Endeavour
on an ambitious mission to service

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the Hubble Space Telescope.”

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My boss on the Orbiting Astronomical Observatory,

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he said, “Look, I'm going to form a team
to design a new telescope.

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We already know
what we're going to call it.

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Just the large telescope.

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And I want you on that team,
and I want you to go work

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the mechanical system

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and figure out how we can take advantage of the new

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space shuttle program

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to see how we could launch it

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and maybe if necessary, repair it,

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and upgraded it.”

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And we built a full scale mockup over

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about a four year period from 70 to 74.

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And we came up with what was called
a modular concept.

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We designed the instruments
and stuff, the complicated parts

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of the spacecraft to be modular
so they could,

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interfaces could be simple,
the modules could slide in and out

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and be picked up
by the same standard interfaces.

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In 75, they picked a winner

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and the winner was Marshall Space
Flight Center and Lockheed.

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And so we were essentially
out of the business, other than to consult

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with them, with regards
to future servicing of Hubble.

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We were responsible for the instrument
development, which by that time

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we decided they were going to be
definitely modular instruments.

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So modularity
started to creep in the thing.

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And then the third aspect is
we were responsible after launch

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for flight operations of Hubble.
Right after the launch,

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and they discovered we had this aberration.

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I got approached by people
at headquarters saying, “Hey,

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would you be interested
in doing a servicing mission on Hubble?”

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And I said, “Yeah, we've been practicing.

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We were ready for that.”

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We had to figure out
what had caused the optical problem,

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and at that time there wasn't a sure
answer.

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What's caused the spherical aberration
and how bad is it?

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What are the optical constants
that would allow us to correct?

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So for six months

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from August on, we focused on the problem that one problem.

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“Three years later...”

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We, indeed a privileged crew
to be able to fly on this mission.

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We have had some of the most intensive
and extensive training

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that I have ever experienced
in preparation for a spaceflight.

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That started with crew members
being named early and continued

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with the use of resources and facilities
that had not been used before

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in the development of the plan
and in the training of crew members.

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We have trained to be able to work
with different people.

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We have also done a lot of training...

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...the differences
between the kinds of training...

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...we'd be very happy to stick with what
we've been training to do for a while...

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...indebted to the tool folks here at JSC
and up at Goddard for not only giving us

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the tools that are very EVA friendly, but
actually modifying some existing tools.

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As we went through training...

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The astronauts figure out things,

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they see things,

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they figure out what to do
in case something happens

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if it's not going right

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they figure out what to do.

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Training opens your mind up
to doing things other than what

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you would normally do if you had to have
a reverse way of doing it.

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If you couldn't do it
the way that it was planned

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here's another way to do it.

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There was always this part
about training and testing

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and so on that allows you to
to find the other alternatives.

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These missions didn't go perfectly.

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Day one. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

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No, no, no, no.

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Almost every day was a horrendous fear
challenge.

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We didn't plan for failure per se.

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We planned for,

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what if this didn't work?

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What if that didn't work?

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What would be the back-arounds

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to augmenting that failure
or leaving that failure alone

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and just going past it?

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And we did have that.

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We did have back-arounds
for almost every one of our EVA

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missions. That if we didn't do this,

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we would immediately skip and go over here to this while

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the engineers on the ground
would figure out what to do there.

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We would not allow ourselves
to think of failure.

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Now, every one of our missions,
100% successful.

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Every mission led to three
or four more years of future missions.

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Eventually, the astronauts
and the water tanks,

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They got so comfortable
with working with our mockups and stuff

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that they began to ask us
for help on things like servicing Station.

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So we were able to develop and change

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some of the tools, varied, the tools,

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changed their design, so they would work on Space Station as well as Hubble.

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And so pretty soon a lot of the tools
that we were using initially on Hubble

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ended up being used predominantly on Space Station for Space Station servicing.

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And so that was a very important growth

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prospect there. It
gets back to this concept of enthusiasm,

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it gets back to this concept
of engineering management.

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And from an engineering perspective,

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you need basically

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to coalesce,

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to bring together a group of people with a common objective

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and keep those people together via

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communications, via large meetings,

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via whatever is necessary
to keep them going.

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Hubble “represents never say no.”

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If something is tough, go for it.

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If it's worthwhile doing,
go for it, dig in to it.

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Do not let “no” bother you.

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All these things, they can be solved.

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They can be solved.

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They can be solved if we make our minds up to go solve them.

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“1994 - one month after the mission”

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this mission.

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Success was no accident.

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We told our people across the board

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very succinctly
two things, that to be successful

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we were going to do testing,
testing, and retesting.

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And as you can see by the images,
they succeeded.

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We succeeded, the formula panned out.

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It's a formula which took 30 years
to develop here at Goddard.

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We've evolved from that point
to get even to a better technology today,

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and I think we move
on from here into the future.

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Servicing Mission 1 had five spacewalks.
With extensive training, all were successful.

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The lessons learned guided future servicing missions
and influenced how we build and maintain structures in space.

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Thirty years later, Hubble continues making discoveries
that change our understanding of the universe.

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Follow us on social media @NASAHubble