STS-82
Report # 05 
 Thursday, February 13, 1997, 6 A.M. CST 
 
 DiscoveryÕs astronauts successfully retrieved the Hubble Space Telescope this morning, 
plucking the 12-ton observatory out of its orbit and berthed it on a special work platform 
at the rear of the ShuttleÕs cargo bay for the start of four spacewalks tonight to install new 
scientific instruments and upgraded engineering components.

Mission Specialist Steve Hawley, who first deployed the telescope during the STS-31 
mission in 1990, used DiscoveryÕs robot arm to grapple Hubble at 2:34 A.M. Central time 
as the Shuttle and the telescope flew off the West coast of Mexico at an altitude of 370 
statute miles.

You should have seen the expression on Dr. StevieÕs face; said Commander Ken 
Bowersox with the telescope firmly in the grasp of the robot arm. It looked like he just 
shook hands with an old friend.

The retrieval of the 43-foot long telescope culminated a textbook rendezvous executed by 
Bowersox, who manually guided Discovery to within 35 feet of Hubble, enabling Hawley 
to extend the robot arm for its capture of the astronomical observatory. Bowersox served 
as pilot on the first Hubble servicing mission in December 1993.

Less than a half hour later, Hawley lowered Hubble onto the Flight Support System 
berthing platform in DiscoveryÕs cargo bay, where it was latched in placed for its 
servicing. A remote controlled umbilical was mated to Hubble to provide electrical power 
for the telescope until it is deployed again next week.

Hawley then maneuvered the robot arm slowly around the telescope to provide close up 
views of Hubble for payload controllers at the Space Telescope Operations Control Center 
at the Goddard Space Flight Center, who are in charge of Hubble science operations. They 
reported that the telescope appeared to be in excellent condition, almost seven years into 
its scientific tour of duty on orbit.

HubbleÕs retrieval sets the stage for the first of four planned spacewalks tonight by 
Payload Commander Mark Lee and Mission Specialist Steve Smith, who will spend six 
hours in the cargo bay removing the Goddard High Resolution Spectrograph and replacing 
it with the new Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph and swapping out the Faint Object 
Spectrograph with the more sophisticated Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object 
Spectrometer, which will offer Hubble its first infrared view of the universe.

The spacewalk is timelined to begin around 10:20 P.M. Central time tonight, but could 
begin up to 45 minutes earlier if work runs ahead of schedule.

The astronauts will begin an eight-hour sleep period at 9:25 this morning and will be 
awakened at 5:25 this afternoon to begin spacewalk preparations.

Discovery and the Hubble Space Telescope are orbiting at an altitude of 370 statute miles 
with all of the ShuttleÕs systems operating in excellent shape.

The next STS-82 mission status report will be issued at 5 P.M. Central time.




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