1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:01,935 >> JOHN: Yep, when you’re working in a vacuum and you’re 2 00:00:01,935 --> 00:00:05,005 inside a spacesuit with oxygen, you know, you don’t wanna cut 3 00:00:05,005 --> 00:00:07,641 your glove because then the oxygen will leak out and then 4 00:00:07,641 --> 00:00:10,711 you die, so that’s a bad day! >> CHRISTY: It’s suboptimal. 5 00:00:10,711 --> 00:00:12,379 [LAUGHTER] 6 00:00:12,379 --> 00:00:25,425 [UPBEAT MUSIC] 7 00:00:25,425 --> 00:00:28,061 >> JOHN: Hi, I’m John Grunsfeld, NASA astronaut. 8 00:00:28,061 --> 00:00:29,696 >> CHRISTY: Hi, I’m Christy Hansen, NASA 9 00:00:29,696 --> 00:00:31,932 astronaut trainer for spacewalking, and flight 10 00:00:31,932 --> 00:00:36,069 controller. >> ED: I’m Ed Rezac, EVA engineer for the Hubble 11 00:00:36,069 --> 00:00:39,606 Space Telescope Project. >> JOHN: Now EVA is an acronym 12 00:00:39,606 --> 00:00:43,110 that means extravehicular activity, which is just a fancy 13 00:00:43,110 --> 00:00:46,914 way of saying “spacewalk,” and I was lucky enough to do eight 14 00:00:46,914 --> 00:00:50,484 spacewalks on the Hubble Space Telescope, working with Christy 15 00:00:50,484 --> 00:00:54,421 and Ed. The Hubble Space Telescope was designed to be 16 00:00:54,421 --> 00:00:58,492 upgraded and fixed on orbit, occasionally something would 17 00:00:58,492 --> 00:01:02,696 break that wasn’t anticipated, and we had to come up with new 18 00:01:02,696 --> 00:01:06,466 ways of fixing it. And that was the case on this last mission, 19 00:01:06,466 --> 00:01:09,336 the most ambitious of all the Hubble missions, and some of the 20 00:01:09,336 --> 00:01:13,240 most difficult spacewalks ever done. The Space Telescope 21 00:01:13,240 --> 00:01:17,077 Imaging Spectrograph failed, and we had to figure out a way to 22 00:01:17,077 --> 00:01:20,213 fix it on orbit rather than putting in a whole new 23 00:01:20,213 --> 00:01:22,683 scientific instrument, which is what we usually did on Hubble. 24 00:01:22,683 --> 00:01:27,321 Unfortunately, the designers of the Space Telescope Imaging 25 00:01:27,321 --> 00:01:30,924 Spectrograph never imagined that we would have to open it up in 26 00:01:30,924 --> 00:01:35,028 space, and it had hundreds of tiny little screws that we had 27 00:01:35,028 --> 00:01:39,700 to remove to access a circuit board to replace it to bring the 28 00:01:39,700 --> 00:01:42,869 tele- the instrument back to life. So these are some of the 29 00:01:42,869 --> 00:01:46,273 tools that we came up with to be able to do that. >> ED: We tried 30 00:01:46,273 --> 00:01:50,744 to make the tools as astronaut friendly as possible, and one 31 00:01:50,744 --> 00:01:55,115 way we had to do that, or that we chose to do that, was using 32 00:01:55,115 --> 00:01:58,752 colors to color code the different size fasteners and the 33 00:01:58,752 --> 00:02:03,323 fastener bits so the astronauts could easily grab what they need 34 00:02:03,323 --> 00:02:06,760 and proceed with the task. >> CHRISTY: How do we pick up an 35 00:02:06,760 --> 00:02:11,098 interface and not lose something in orbit? Bit caddy! Which one 36 00:02:11,098 --> 00:02:15,068 do you want John? >> JOHN: I’ll take a red bit! [TOOL CLANKS] 37 00:02:15,068 --> 00:02:18,905 >> ED: John’s going for the red bit. The STIS had several 38 00:02:18,905 --> 00:02:23,210 different fastener types that had to be removed which required 39 00:02:23,210 --> 00:02:28,548 different bits. And the fastener capture plate which held all the 40 00:02:28,548 --> 00:02:32,419 fasteners and kept them from drifting into the optics core of 41 00:02:32,419 --> 00:02:37,224 the telescope was also color coded. So John could match the 42 00:02:37,224 --> 00:02:42,129 bit up with the color code on the plate itself. >> JOHN: So we 43 00:02:42,129 --> 00:02:45,899 installed this fastener capture plate on the front of the STIS: 44 00:02:45,899 --> 00:02:50,470 Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph Instrument, and the 45 00:02:50,470 --> 00:02:53,774 reason why we had to use the fastener capture plate is, as Ed 46 00:02:53,774 --> 00:02:58,245 said, if I were to remove a screw and let go of it and it 47 00:02:58,245 --> 00:03:01,715 floated away it could damage the telescope. So all of the screws 48 00:03:01,715 --> 00:03:06,286 were behind this plate. >> CHRISTY: And you had 111 49 00:03:06,286 --> 00:03:10,691 chances to lose screws. >> JOHN: And you would insert the bit 50 00:03:10,691 --> 00:03:13,760 through a tiny little hole on the fastener capture plate, 51 00:03:13,760 --> 00:03:15,395 engage the head of the screw, 52 00:03:15,395 --> 00:03:18,665 [TOOL WHIRRS] undo it, and then when you take the 53 00:03:18,665 --> 00:03:22,269 bit out the screw would float around inside of this little 54 00:03:22,269 --> 00:03:26,473 cavity, and the screw was big enough that it wouldn’t fit 55 00:03:26,473 --> 00:03:30,944 through the hole. And then repeat 111 times. 56 00:03:30,944 --> 00:03:34,614 >> CHRISTY: And how do we track all that John? >> JOHN: Well, 57 00:03:34,614 --> 00:03:37,984 like any good spacewalk we had a set of procedures that you 58 00:03:37,984 --> 00:03:40,821 helped write. >> CHRISTY: Exactly, so we had a whole 59 00:03:40,821 --> 00:03:44,057 ground team associated with developing the procedures, 60 00:03:44,057 --> 00:03:47,160 capturing all the requirements, and flying an EVA 61 00:03:47,160 --> 00:03:48,595 spacewalking checklist on orbit. 62 00:03:48,595 --> 00:03:51,698 So when John and Mike Massimino, who actually performed this task 63 00:03:51,698 --> 00:03:54,668 on spacewalk number four, removed each one, we had a 64 00:03:54,668 --> 00:03:57,537 requirement that he actually read to the ground, “okay I’m 65 00:03:57,537 --> 00:04:00,173 releasing screw number one,” and we would all be on the ground, 66 00:04:00,173 --> 00:04:04,177 “check, screw number one,” “now screw number two,” 111 times to 67 00:04:04,177 --> 00:04:06,446 make sure that everything was fully released, so that when he 68 00:04:06,446 --> 00:04:09,950 went to remove the interface nothing was stuck, it wasn’t 69 00:04:09,950 --> 00:04:12,819 stuck on the telescope. >> JOHN: Really amazing, all the 70 00:04:12,819 --> 00:04:15,889 complexity to do something as simple as removing hundreds of 71 00:04:15,889 --> 00:04:20,260 tiny screws so that we can get access to the circuit board and 72 00:04:20,260 --> 00:04:23,930 use another tool to pull it out, put a new one in, put a new 73 00:04:23,930 --> 00:04:27,934 cover on with no screws that locked on, >> ED: Right. 74 00:04:27,934 --> 00:04:30,203 >> JOHN: and bring that instrument back to life so that 75 00:04:30,203 --> 00:04:34,241 it could continue looking at black holes and the distant 76 00:04:34,241 --> 00:04:36,243 universe, really pretty amazing, all worked 77 00:04:36,243 --> 00:04:37,744 out great. >> CHRISTY: In addition 78 00:04:37,744 --> 00:04:40,380 to what John said, the astronauts had to be trained on 79 00:04:40,380 --> 00:04:42,716 “stay away from this,” “don’t touch that,” they’re taking 80 00:04:42,716 --> 00:04:45,418 something off and handing it off to another astronaut, they have 81 00:04:45,418 --> 00:04:48,555 to make sure that they don’t cut gloves in the process of doing 82 00:04:48,555 --> 00:04:51,224 those transfers. So all that is designed, and trained, into 83 00:04:51,224 --> 00:04:53,927 their repeated training tasks so they have this muscle memory to 84 00:04:53,927 --> 00:04:56,029 be careful every single time. >> JOHN: Yep, when you’re 85 00:04:56,029 --> 00:04:57,631 working in a vacuum and you're inside a 86 00:04:57,631 --> 00:04:59,766 spacesuit with oxygen, you know, 87 00:04:59,766 --> 00:05:01,968 you don’t wanna cut your glove because then the oxygen will 88 00:05:01,968 --> 00:05:04,838 leak out and then you die, so that’s a bad day! 89 00:05:04,838 --> 00:05:08,108 >> CHRISTY: It’s suboptimal. [LAUGHTER] >> JOHN: Thanks for 90 00:05:08,108 --> 00:05:10,010 joining us on Hubble Tool Time! >> CHRISTY: Thank you! 91 00:05:10,010 --> 00:05:11,478 >> ED: See ya! 92 00:05:11,478 --> 00:05:14,981 [UPBEAT MUSIC] 93 00:05:14,981 --> 00:05:21,454 [SILENCE] 94 00:05:21,454 --> 00:05:25,831 >>CHRISTY: I like all the pretty colors. 95 00:05:25,831 --> 00:05:34,105 [UPBEAT MUSIC] 96 00:05:34,105 --> 00:05:35,574 >>JOHN: That’s pretty stable. 97 00:05:35,574 --> 00:00:00,000 >>MIKE: That’s not bad at all. >>JOHN: Kind of boring.