space.com — The Hubble Space Telescope appears better than new as NASA puts the 19-year-old observatory through a battery of tests after its final facelift by an astronaut repair crew. "We just repaired the Hubble Space Telescope. We've got a whole new telescope."
May 27, 2009 View in Crawl 4
leezusMay 27, 2009
Damn, if they had just hit it with their wrenches 8 more times it would have been even better.
tymekpavelMay 27, 2009
Meh, soon to be obsolete: <a class="user" href="http://digg.com/space/NASA_s_Next_Generation_Space_Telescope">http://digg.com/space/NASA_s_Next_Generation_Space ...</a>But seriously, these upgrades will drastically improve our ability to explore the far reaches of the universe.
gustomuchoMay 27, 2009
RTFA : new and improved Hubble once more ready for science observations in late August
sprucecabooseMay 27, 2009
Its more likely that they will just let it sit in space "dead in the water", since bringing it home is risky to both the Hubble and the shuttle(s) that would need to go and get it, and not to mention costly.
jpowell180May 31, 2009
Actually the shuttle is perfectly capable of returning the HST - and in fact initial plans were to return it to Earth to repair it.Many times, the shuttle has carried the Spacelab and Spacehab modules into space and they of course returned to Earth with them, as well as the Long Duration Exposure Facility.So the payload by certainly doesn't have to be emply.That being said, the shuttles will be retired next year, so it would be pretty retarded to A. waste a shuttle mission that could be used to further build up the station just to grab the HST to put it in a museum and B. bring it down so soon after a repair mission.