Astronauts Begin Spacewalk Work of Hubble

Repairs of the Hubble Space Telescope began this morning as two Shuttle Astronauts, John Grunsfeld and Drew Feustel, left the Atlantis Shuttle to begin their work for the day. The entire spacewalk today is expected to take nearly seven hours to complete. It's a long day of work but at least the two will have spectacular views of Earth while they are working.

Part of their work includes removing the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 and replace it with a new wide-field camera. The new camera will allow the telescope to take large-scale, clear and detailed photos over a wide range of colors.

The spacewalkers next major task will be the replacement of the Science Instrument Command and Data Handling Unit. The computer sends commands to Hubbles science instruments and formats science data for transmission to the ground.

Finally, time permitting the two will install a soft capture device which will allow for future space vehicles to attach to the telescope.

The Atlantis crew linked up with the telescope yesterday at 1:14 PM EDT. The STS-125 crewnwill perform five separate spacewalks to repair, restore, and renew thenHubble Space Telescope and if all goes well the telescope should be good until 2014 at least.