[AZ-Observing] Space Telescope News
- From: BillFerris@xxxxxxx
- To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 17:09:17 -0500
Brian Skiff posted the following to the Amastro list. Apparently, HST service
mission 4 (tentatively scheduled for mid-2005) has been cancelled by NASA
director Sean O'Keefe. This mission would have replaced the Wide Field
Planetary Camera-2 (WFPC2) with Wide Field Camera-3 (WFC3). Also, the Cosmic
Origins Spectrograph (COS) would have been installed to replace COSTAR.
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This will probably be hitting the news soon. Here's some "inside"
information from Debra Elmegreen passed along via Phil Massey here at
Lowell:
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 14:04:54 -0500
From: Debra Elmegreen .....
To: <long list omitted>
Subject: Devastating Hubble news
Hi Keckies-
Perhaps you saw HST director Steve Beckwith's statement in the NY Times this
morning that HST was in jeopardy because of the new moon/Mars missions. I
tried to contact Steve earlier but he was not in the office. Eric Smith from
NASA just called (since I am HST Users Committee chair) to tell me that Sean
O'Keefe has just cancelled Servicing Mission 4 for HST, with President
Bush's support. It is a done deal. Although Ed Weiler and John Grunsfeld
fought the decision, it was Sean's alone to make. He has been considering it
for months. The issue was NOT money; it was safety. The whole shuttle
program would have needed to have been overhauled just for getting to HST,
but with much less hassle for Space Station launches. Other divisions within
NASA, such as some solar missions, were willing to put their money towards
keeping HST going. But it won't happen now. A robotic mission will bring HST
down when it dies. This will mean a tremendous immediate loss of jobs within
the STScI. Eric said the one silver lining is that everyone promised that
JWST would only be limited by technical difficulties, not money.
So, if you're preparing HST proposals for next week, they may be among your
last...just wanted to share the sad news.
Regards,
Debbie
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