Columbia returns to Earth, ending triumphant Hubble repair mission

By Marcia Dunn

Associated Press

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Space shuttle Columbia and its crew of seven returned to Earth before dawn Tuesday, ending their triumphant Hubble Space Telescope repair mission.

The shuttle landed right on time on NASA’s 3-mile-long runway, illuminated by powerful xenon floodlights. “Field in sight on a beautiful night,” radioed commander Scott Altman, moments before the 4:32 a.m. touchdown.

Infrared cameras relayed pictures of the approaching spaceship, a ghostly, grainy image against the dark sky.

“It’s great to be back here at Kennedy Space Center after this incredible experience at Hubble,” Altman said. Two hours later, after having a chance to inspect his spaceship, he said: “I’m awe-struck when I look back at everything we were able to do.”

During a record 36 hours of spacewalking the astronauts equipped Hubble with more powerful solar wings, a better central power controller and an advanced camera capable of peering across the universe almost to the beginning of time. By the time they released the observatory on Saturday, it had received $172 million worth of new gear.

“This mission was historic in that it essentially did a Lasik surgery operation on a telescope that now makes it 10 times better – and it was extraordinary before the servicing mission,” said NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe, on hand for his first space shuttle landing.

The astronauts, O’Keefe added, did an amazing job “and we owe them a tremendous debt of gratitude.”

Columbia logged nearly 4 million miles during its 11-day journey. Hubble, meanwhile, was pushing 1.8 billion miles after 12 years in orbit – roughly the distance from Earth to Uranus.

The flight got off to a shaky start March 1 because of a clogged shuttle cooling line that threatened to bring the crew home early. But the problem never worsened, and the astronauts went on to perform five spacewalks over five days.

Besides giving Hubble the most advanced optical camera ever launched to study the cosmos, the astronauts added an experimental refrigeration system that NASA hopes will revive a disabled infrared camera. Scientists won’t know if the repair worked for at least another month.

Even with the new camera alone, astronomers hope to look as far back as the first billion years of the universe.

Astronaut John Grunsfeld, an astrophysicist who was the chief telescope repairman, said it will be hard to wait until the first images come out in early May. “I can tell you that I’ll probably be bothering the folks at the telescope institute weekly to get status reports and sneak previews,” he told reporters.

NASA considered this its most challenging service call. Not only were the spacewalks difficult and jammed with work, the telescope had to be completely shut down for the power controller replacement, something that had never been intended. To scientists’ relief, all of Hubble’s systems came back on when power surged through the new controller.

Grunsfeld said Hubble easily should make it to 2010, at which time NASA intends to decommission the observatory and bring it back for museum display. One more servicing mission is planned, in 2004.

As for Columbia, NASA plans to crack open the clogged cooling system of its oldest space shuttle to find the debris that got stuck inside, probably from welding during an extensive overhaul. Despite the problem, the system provided sufficient cooling during Columbia’s fiery descent through the atmosphere, said Linda Ham, a space shuttle program manager.

Next up: a space station assembly flight in just three weeks by shuttle Atlantis. NASA needs to fix a problem with the international space station’s construction crane, however, before Atlantis can be launched.