May 13, 2009

HST is now docked to the Atlantis shuttle

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I am watching on my iPhone NASA TV showing the Hubble Space Telescope being docked to the Atlantis shuttle. We are clearly living in the future, don’t you think?

Thanks to my colleague Marshall Perrin from UCLA for telling me about TVUPlayer, a useful tool to watch NASA TV on my phone. :-)

I am attaching a few captured screen pictures in case you could not watch that. I must confess that I missed the part when the observatory was attached to Atlantis since I still have to read these ESO proposals :-)

enjoy

F.

In this sequence of three images you can see the slow motion of the arm bringing the Hubble Space Telescope nearby the dock of Atlantis.

HST and Earth in the background. The robotic arm is visible on the right.

The Hubble Space Telescope at 600 km above Earth. The robotic arm is visible on the right.

HST 600 km above Baja California

HST 600 km above Baja California

The docking was successful.

The dock as seen when Atlantis is in the night side.

Inside space command, while waiting for communication with the shuttle to be recovered (The cluster Atlantis-HST was above the Indian Ocean at this time)

Inside Johnson space center, while waiting for communication with the shuttle to be recovered (The cluster Atlantis-HST was above the Indian Ocean at this time)

About Franck Marchis

Dr. Franck Marchis is a Researcher at the Carl Sagan Center of the SETI Institute since July 2007. Over the past 15 years, he has dedicated his research to the study of our solar system using mainly ground-based telescopes equipped with adaptive optics. More recently he has been also involved in the definition of new generation of AOs for 8 -10 m class telescopes and future Extremely Large Telescopes. He has developed algorithms to process and enhance the quality of images, both astronomical and biological, using fluorescence microscopy. His currently involved in the development of the Gemini Planet Imager, an extreme AO system for the Gemini South telescope which will be capable of imaging and record spectra of exoplanets orbiting around nearby stars.

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