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Astronauts perform coverup
Extra spacewalk scheduled for Monday night
February 17, 1997
Web posted at: 9:15 a.m. ESTIn this story:
From Correspondent John Holliman
(CNN) -- Astronauts fastened makeshift protection over the Hubble Space Telescope's aging insulation to protect it from the sun's heat and prepared for an unscheduled fifth spacewalk on Monday night to finish the job.
Working six stories over the cargo bay of space shuttle Discovery, with the cloud-covered blue Earth as a backdrop, Gregory Harbaugh and Joe Tanner fitted insulation bandages over two rips in Hubble's protective Teflon cover caused by harsh ultraviolet radiation from the sun. Four torn and tattered areas on Hubble's sun-facing side must still be covered.
(646K/15 sec. Small frame QuickTime movie)
The insulation blankets were fastened with a nylon and steel drawstring onto handholds and bolts.
Astronaut Story Musgrave, who led the first Hubble repair mission in 1993, told CNN's John Holliman in a live Monday morning interview from Houston that the Discovery crew was doing "an A-plus" job.
Astronaut Story Musgrave talks about: 
What's needed for a successful repair
(22 sec./482K AIFF or WAV sound)The insulation blankets
(16 sec./357K AIFF or WAV sound)Whether the fix will hold
(19 sec./422K AIFF or WAV sound)
"This is the first time we've visited a satellite that's been out there seven years, so we are now starting to learn things about it."
Other work accomplished, too
The fourth spacewalk lasted six hours, 34 minutes, bringing the total for Discovery's mission to 27 hours, 54 minutes.
Before Harbaugh and Tanner did their emergency patch-up work, they completed their planned servicing tasks.
They successfully installed a European-built electronic device that enables the telescope's solar panels to find the sun and recharge on-board batteries. They also added sturdier protective caps for two magnetometers, which are part of Hubble's guidance system.
The caps fit over gold-colored plastic bags installed by two other astronauts in 1993 in another on-the-spot, unplanned repair.
More patch work ahead
Inside Discovery, pilot Scott Horowitz was busy manufacturing makeshift sunshields for the telescope's damaged insulation, using any odds and ends available inside the shuttle's crew cabin.
Ground controllers faxed the crew five pages of instructions and 14 diagrams to show them how to build sunshields from spare insulating foil, electrical wire, ropes, cords, alligator clips and wrap ties, using scissors, wire cutter, crimp tools and sticky tape.
Hubble's exterior is subjected to enormous temperature swings each time the telescope's orbit carries it in and out of sunlight. Only the outermost of the 17 layers of insulation has peeled away and only in six places on the telescope.
Scientists had noticed no degradation in the telescope's performance.
Harbaugh and Tanner performed their work on a platform lifted by the shuttle crane to the top of the 43-foot telescope. Counting the height of the device holding the Hubble, they were about 60 feet over the cargo bay, still securely tethered to the shuttle.
Discovery is expected to land on schedule Friday at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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Related stories:
- Astronauts complete fourth spacewalk - February 17, 1997
- Three down, two to go - February 16, 1997
- Astronauts dodge space junk for third spacewalk - February 16, 1997
- Astronaut savors first walk in space - February 15, 1997
- Spacewalkers get to work on Hubble tuneup - February 14, 1997
- 'It's a beautiful sight' - February 13, 1997
- Shuttle Discovery blasts off on Hubble service mission - February 11, 1997
Related sites:
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- Hubble Space Telescope Science
- Johnson Space Center Shuttle Countdown STS-82
- Space Station Mir Info Page
- Tracking the mission
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