NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

During the next servicing mission, Servicing Mission 4 (SM4), astronauts will make the final trip to the Hubble Telescope. Over the course of five spacewalks, they will install two new instruments, repair two inactive ones, and perform the component replacements that will keep the telescope functioning at least into 2014. The effort-intensive, rigorously researched, exhaustively tested mission also involves diverse groups of people on the ground throughout the country.

+ Here's how NASA plans to do it.

Hubble Space Telescope Problem Delays STS-125 Launch

Sept. 30, 2008
Due to the significant Hubble Space Telescope malfunction that occurred over the weekend affecting the storage and transmittal of science data to Earth, NASA will evaluate the investigation results before fully determining the impact to launch of the STS-125 servicing mission.

Under consideration is the possibility of flying a back-up replacement system as part of the payload, which could be installed during the servicing mission. The back-up unit will need to be checked out and tested at Goddard Spaceflight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and as a result, won’t be ready to be delivered to Kennedy Space Center in Florida until the first week in January.

NASA now will fly space shuttle Endeavour's STS-126 mission to the International Space Station first, with the STS-125 servicing mission moving into 2009. Endeavour is targeted to launch Nov. 16. Managers are looking into moving the target date up a couple of days if possible.

> Read more
> Read the full release for September 29 media briefing
> View September 29 briefing materials and teleconference transcript

Servicing Mission 4 Fact Sheets
> SM4 Summary
 > Space Shuttle Atlantis (STS-125) Mission Summary
 > Wide Field Camera 3
 > Cosmic Origins Spectrograph
 > Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph Repair
 > Advanced Camera for Surveys Repair
 > Space Telescope Operations Control Center
 > Gyroscopes
 > Fine Guidance Sensor
 > Batteries
 > New Outer Blanket Layer
 > Soft Capture and Rendezvous System
 > Super Lightweight Interchangeable Carrier

Instrument Sites:
> Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3)
> Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS)
> Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) Repair
> Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) Repair