Spacewalkers repair Hubble

Nation & World News

Atlantis' astronauts headed out for another spacewalk Friday, this time to give the Hubble Space Telescope some new, badly needed gyroscopes and batteries.

John Grunsfeld during Thursday's spacewalk. Replacing Hubble's gyroscopes is the top priority for this final repair mission to the 19-year-old observatory. The gyroscopes are part of the telescope pointing system, and half of the old ones are broken.

This photo provided by NASA taken from the ground using a telescope with a solar filter shows the NASA space shuttle Atlantis in silhouette during solar transit, Tuesday, May 12, 2009, from Florida. This image was made before Atlantis and the crew of STS-125 had grappled the Hubble Space Telescope.

On Thursday, astronaut Andrew Feustel, mission specialist, performs work on the Hubble Space Telescope as the first of five STS-125 spacewalks kicks off a week's work on the orbiting observatory.

STS-125 mission specialist Michael Good is busy on Atlantis' middeck during his second day in space Wednesday.

In all, five spacewalks are planned so that the observatory ⿿ beloved by astronomers and many others for its breathtaking views of the universe ⿿ is at its apex while living out its remaining years. Above, John Grunsfeld on Thursday.

Astronaut Mike Massimino mission specialist on the flight deck of space shuttle Atlantis during flight activities on Wednesday. The astronaut sent the first "tweets" from orbit to Twitter, the social networking site.

NASA hopes to get another five to 10 years of use out of Hubble, once the Atlantis astronauts plug in all the new equipment. They also will take a crack at fixing two broken science instruments this weekend. The mission cost NASA more than $1 billion, one-tenth of what has been spent on Hubble over the decades

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Atlantis' astronauts headed out for another spacewalk Friday, this time to give the Hubble Space Telescope some new, badly needed gyroscopes and batteries.

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