Sky News - CA (2020-03 & 2020-04)

Andrew Feustel is the only Canadian who

has touched Hubble in space.

“If you asked me if any of these things would

ever come to be before I became an astro-

naut, I would have thought, ‘No way,’” he said.

Feustel, a dual U.S. citizen, is one of the

astronauts who kept Hubble going. Five

space shuttle crews visited Hubble between

1993 and 2009. Each time, they used that

famous Canadian space technology — the

Canadarm — to carefully pull the telescope

within reach of the space shuttle.

Working in bulky spacesuits and stif gloves,

the astronauts would disassemble Hubble

for space surgery. hey installed new instru-

ments. hey removed broken parts. hey re-

placed gyroscopes, solar panels and batteries.

And they installed better cameras to get the

best interstellar imaging possible.

Astronauts did all this while lying roughly

545 kilometres above Earth’s surface, teth-

ered to the telescope so as not to loat away

into empty space. Most memorably, in 1993,

they performed emergency “eye surgery” by

ixing a mirror deforming the telescope’s

ield of view. Hubble would have been

useless without intervention, so it was a

great space save for the Canadarm.

Hubble is just one demonstration of the

nimble Canadarm technology. A next-gen-

eration arm called Canadarm2 lives on the

International Space Station today, snagging

robotic spacecraft and doing space station

repairs. A Canadarm3 may ly to the Moon

in the 2020s to service a NASA space station.

Feustel said space light today would be

unimaginable without the Canadarms.

“his is hardware that supports our mis-

sions,” he said. “Canada plays a big part in it.

And as an astronaut, when you go to space, in

all likelihood, you’re going to use one of these

tools to perform your duties in space.”

Hubble was lucky to beneit from the space

shuttle, because that old spaceship line was

grounded in 2011. hat said, the telescope

remains in excellent health. Many astrono-

mers think Hubble will operate through

much of the 2020s, if not longer.

Astronaut Andrew

Feustel, perched

alone on the end of

the space shuttle

Atlantis̛ Canadarm,

participated in

the first of five

STS-125 spacewalks

to perform work on

the Hubble Space

Telescope, tempo-

rarily locked down

in the cargo bay of

the Earth-orbiting

shuttle. (NASA)

SKYNEWS • MAR/APR 2020