Hubble's 'eyes' into the museum

After 15 years of service in space, two devices WFPC-2 and Costar - regarded as the Hubble telescope's eyes and eyeglasses - were removed by astronauts in May 2009. They are replaced by new, more powerful, more efficient devices to enhance Hubble's observation capabilities.

Costar was removed from Hubble and moved to Earth in May 2009 - Photo: NASA

The new home for WFPC-2 and Costar is the National Aerospace Museum in Washington DC (USA). Expected in December 2009, the two devices will be taken to perform around the state of California, before returning to the museum for public viewing in 2010.

According to the BBC, in 1993, Costar was installed in Hubble, helping to edit the image that Hubble devices and cameras recorded. And WFPC-2 is a wide-angle planetary camera. Costar after many years of work suffered from small cracks in the bend of the device, which was the main cause of the resulting images being blurred, no longer as sharp as before. After replacing the new devices, Hubble became more efficient, recorded and sent many beautiful images that had never been possible before.

Currently the National Aerospace Museum is storing and displaying thousands of devices in the history of developing flights into space.