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	+ Home		Servicing Mission 4 (SM4) Launch Date Set The launch of the space Shuttle Atlantis to service the Hubble for the fifth and final time is targeted for October 10, 2008.         Hubble to be Serviced Again Administrator Michael Griffin's decision on October 31, 2006 to fly servicing mission SM4 in mid- to late-2008 will bring unique capabilities to Hubble in the form of two new science instruments, Cosmic Origins Spectrograph and Wide Field Camera 3. New gyros and batteries will extend Hubble's life through 2014.         Past Servicing of Hubble In four Space Shuttle Servicing Missions (SM) dating to December, 1993, astronaut crews performed vital servicing tasks on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), both extending operating life with the replacement of aging hardware, and enhancing scientific capability by very large factors with the installation of advanced science instruments incorporating new cutting-edge technologies. Maintaining and upgrading the telescope in such a way was part of the Hubble mission plan going back to the Program's earliest days, and this foresight produced a modular telescope design which permitted astronaut-friendly servicing operations. The periodic maintenance and upgrading of Hubble has clearly been the key to its success as one of the premier scientific facilities in human history, and mission-by-mission descriptions of the telescope's servicing can be viewed by clicking on the links to the left (for example, "SM1").
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