Latest Wide Field and Planetary Camera Stories

Space is not a hospitable place, and when scientists and engineers design and build new components for the Hubble Space Telescope, that fact is always clearly in mind.Hubble must endure harsh temperature swings of 215 F, micro-meteor impacts and exposure to solar radiation. On top of that, before a spacecraft like Hubble can operate in orbit, it has to survive the trip to get there. That's where the environmental testing chambers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., come...

AUSTIN, Texas — The orbiting space telescope that just won't quit collecting gobs of celestial data well beyond its expected twilight is set for a major tune-up and upgrade, NASA scientists announced today here at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society. The fifth servicing mission will also be the Hubble Space Telescope's last. Word here today is that the Space Shuttle Atlantis would lift off in August with a crew of seven astronauts, a cargo of equipment, tools...

NASA scientists and a space shuttle astronaut today outlined details of a challenging mission that will repair and upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope in 2008. The Hubble servicing mission, designated STS-125, will equip the orbiting observatory with far greater capabilities than ever had before to explore the nature and history of our universe.Space Shuttle Atlantis is scheduled to lift off in August with a crew of seven astronauts and a cargo of equipment, tools and new instruments on the...

James Webb telescope will have mirror support system made in Boulder BOULDER - As the Hubble Space Telescope nears its final few years of duty, its successor is being built in Boulder. The next generation James Webb Space Telescope is scheduled to replace the Hubble in 2010, and Boulder-based Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. again is helping to build the nation's leading mechanical space explorer. Ball Aerospace helped construct the 14- year-old Hubble, which looks deep into space at...