The shuttle meets a space telescope

The Atlantis ship's arm yesterday connected to the Hubble Space Telescope and the astronauts began a five-day repair work.

The Atlantis ship's arm is holding the Hubble telescope in Australia.Photo: NASA.

Hubble and Atlantis are flying at 560 km above the ground, surrounded by a few thousand and small pieces of trash. Some pieces flew by the Atlantis ship yesterday but were lucky not to touch the shuttle.

Contrary to scientists' predictions, Hubble remained in good condition after 19 years of enduring the harsh heat and cold in Earth's low orbit. NASA confirmed Hubble's ability to operate at the highest level after this repair.

The Atlantis machine arm successfully connected with Hubble as they flew above Australia. Space telescopes are fed into the cargo compartment of the ship, where the cameras will inspect all parts of the glass. Later, astronauts will replace the second wide-angle camera (the size of a children's piano) and a data processing unit (broken from last September).

This is the fifth time the Hubble glass repair astronauts. In the previous times, they just removed the old equipment and installed new parts. But this time astronauts will have to "dissect" broken equipment.

"We are going to do things that astronauts have never done: disassemble components and look inside. When building these devices, people don't think about the prospects one day they will We have to remove 110 or 111 screws, which is a challenge , " said Ed Weiler, NASA's director of space operations.

Two groups of astronauts (each consisting of two) will take turns walking out into space. In addition to replacing old cameras and data processing units, they have to replace batteries and gyroscopes; installation of new heat shields; Remove two electronic devices to replace components. The two groups also had to install a connection unit so that a future spacecraft could bring Hubble into the ocean when it completed its mission.