WEBVTT FILE 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.770 After Hubble’s deployment in 1990. Astronomers quickly realized there was a problem. 2 00:00:03.770 --> 00:00:06.639 The conclusion we've come to from that is that there is a significant 3 00:00:06.639 --> 00:00:09.943 spherical aberration appears to be present in the optics. 4 00:00:09.943 --> 00:00:13.513 ...and that we should be able to fix it in our insurance program. 5 00:00:13.513 --> 00:00:15.181 So when we were on the first service mission, 6 00:00:15.181 --> 00:00:17.617 that was like make it or break it, you know, if we didn't 7 00:00:17.617 --> 00:00:21.154 get it going, get it fixed, it was not good for NASA. 8 00:00:21.154 --> 00:00:23.223 There was talk about it being make or break it 9 00:00:23.223 --> 00:00:24.524 for the International Space Station. 10 00:00:24.524 --> 00:00:26.926 If you can't fix a telescope, you can't build a space station. 11 00:00:26.926 --> 00:00:31.498 You know, vitally important that we do what had to be done and get it done. 12 00:00:31.531 --> 00:00:32.298 Liftoff. 13 00:00:32.298 --> 00:00:33.266 Liftoff of the Space 14 00:00:33.266 --> 00:00:45.578 Shuttle Endeavour on an ambitious mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope. 15 00:00:45.578 --> 00:00:48.882 The hard part of getting ready to launch is saying goodbye to your family. 16 00:00:48.882 --> 00:00:51.951 So we went in quarantine a week before flight. 17 00:00:51.951 --> 00:00:53.853 Couldn't see our children after that point. 18 00:00:53.853 --> 00:00:56.589 Could see our spouses up until the day before. 19 00:00:56.589 --> 00:00:59.793 Once you said goodbye for me, it was like being on autopilot. 20 00:00:59.793 --> 00:01:02.162 You know, I trained to do this. I'm going to do this. 21 00:01:02.162 --> 00:01:04.631 And I remember standing out on the launch tower 22 00:01:04.631 --> 00:01:09.803 and looking around at the ocean and the beach and all that, 23 00:01:09.803 --> 00:01:15.041 trying to soak it up and thinking, I wonder if this is my last day on Earth. 24 00:01:15.041 --> 00:01:18.211 Just kind of matter of factly because 25 00:01:18.211 --> 00:01:23.283 somebody's going to get hurt, but probably not me and probably not today. 26 00:01:23.283 --> 00:01:26.553 Liftoff is is not like somebody kicks you in the back. 27 00:01:26.553 --> 00:01:29.422 It's more like this firm unrelenting push. 28 00:01:29.422 --> 00:01:30.690 It starts up. 29 00:01:30.690 --> 00:01:33.226 It's a lot of vibrations in the first stage when the solids 30 00:01:33.226 --> 00:01:36.963 were still burning, and then after they separated, 31 00:01:36.963 --> 00:01:40.500 it gets really smooth like an electric cart ride. 32 00:01:40.500 --> 00:01:43.069 Acceleration builds up to like three Gs toward 33 00:01:43.069 --> 00:01:46.606 the end of ascent to feel heavy smashed into your seat. 34 00:01:46.606 --> 00:01:49.509 And then when the main engines cut off, you go from like having a gorilla 35 00:01:49.509 --> 00:01:53.346 sitting on your chest. Everything floats, like in a heartbeat. 36 00:01:53.346 --> 00:01:55.448 That’s kind of a magical moment. 37 00:01:55.448 --> 00:01:58.451 You go, wow, we're here! 38 00:01:58.451 --> 00:02:00.720 I think most people, when they first stick 39 00:02:00.720 --> 00:02:04.891 their head out to do a spacewalk, the overwhelming 40 00:02:04.891 --> 00:02:07.994 feeling or thought is, please, God, don't let me screw this up, 41 00:02:07.994 --> 00:02:09.362 because the whole world is watching. 42 00:02:09.362 --> 00:02:11.331 Everything you say is on air to ground. 43 00:02:11.331 --> 00:02:12.632 “And I've got to go. 44 00:02:12.632 --> 00:02:16.002 It's slewing KT. You're doing that?” 45 00:02:16.002 --> 00:02:17.270 “I’m not touching it.” 46 00:02:17.270 --> 00:02:19.239 “Okay, let me get stabilized.” 47 00:02:19.239 --> 00:02:22.742 You have to mind language and not say things you don't want your mother to hear. 48 00:02:22.742 --> 00:02:23.810 “You got a handle in it?” 49 00:02:23.810 --> 00:02:28.214 “I got a handle in it.” 50 00:02:28.214 --> 00:02:29.749 It's not that you're going to get hurt. 51 00:02:29.749 --> 00:02:32.485 It's that you mess up something because it's 52 00:02:32.485 --> 00:02:35.989 just so important to get it right, but the time goes by so fast. 53 00:02:35.989 --> 00:02:38.224 Even though we're moving excruciatingly slowly. 54 00:02:38.224 --> 00:02:41.694 And if you're watching this on video, you fall asleep in the middle of it. 55 00:02:41.694 --> 00:02:46.166 But to us, the time just went by really, really fast. 56 00:02:46.166 --> 00:02:47.700 I think we melded really well. 57 00:02:47.700 --> 00:02:49.235 I mean, everybody had their job to do 58 00:02:49.235 --> 00:02:51.638 and they knew that everybody was cross-trained. 59 00:02:51.638 --> 00:02:54.274 We went out into the cargo bay to do a spacewalk. 60 00:02:54.274 --> 00:02:57.377 We had all the tools we needed to do any task assigned 61 00:02:57.377 --> 00:03:00.880 to the whole mission, not just the one for our day. 62 00:03:00.947 --> 00:03:02.882 So if we got in trouble with something, 63 00:03:02.882 --> 00:03:06.019 we could drop that and we'd go do something else and still be productive. 64 00:03:06.019 --> 00:03:08.454 So we did an enormous amount across training and everything. 65 00:03:08.454 --> 00:03:09.422 On the day that you go out 66 00:03:09.422 --> 00:03:12.892 to roll up the solar panels, the old ones, they don't roll up. 67 00:03:12.892 --> 00:03:14.627 You said you got several people. 68 00:03:14.627 --> 00:03:18.565 You said you’ve got several options of things you can do. What what can you do 69 00:03:18.565 --> 00:03:23.636 if those pesky solar panels don't work again, as you try to retract them? 70 00:03:23.636 --> 00:03:25.171 If they don't retract, 71 00:03:25.171 --> 00:03:28.975 then our plan is to put a grapple fixture on them. 72 00:03:28.975 --> 00:03:32.779 Let the arm grab them and hold them overboard out of our way 73 00:03:32.779 --> 00:03:36.149 and we'll install the new solar arrays when they are checked out. 74 00:03:36.149 --> 00:03:37.650 Then we'll jettison the old ones. 75 00:03:37.650 --> 00:03:39.786 The way the solar arrays are supposed to roll up. 76 00:03:39.786 --> 00:03:42.622 And they had to for us to bring them home because we had a place for them 77 00:03:42.622 --> 00:03:43.823 to be stowed. 78 00:03:43.823 --> 00:03:46.159 And if they didn't fit there, we couldn't bring them home. 79 00:03:46.159 --> 00:03:49.429 And so the way they operate is that the bi-stems, 80 00:03:49.429 --> 00:03:52.732 the support on the side that extends it and pulls it back is like 81 00:03:52.732 --> 00:03:55.935 two pieces of metal that curl up on itself. 82 00:03:55.935 --> 00:03:59.439 When you extend it out of the canister like a metal tape measure. 83 00:03:59.439 --> 00:04:01.541 So one is one way and the other curls around it. 84 00:04:01.541 --> 00:04:02.909 So that was the bi-stem. 85 00:04:02.909 --> 00:04:06.679 So when we went to retract the one that didn't roll up, 86 00:04:06.679 --> 00:04:10.283 we could see that one piece of that bi-stem was longer than the other. 87 00:04:10.283 --> 00:04:11.851 Somehow it had slipped. 88 00:04:11.851 --> 00:04:15.188 “There is a definite kink 89 00:04:15.188 --> 00:04:17.657 right at the 90 00:04:17.657 --> 00:04:20.059 upper edge of the second panel 91 00:04:20.059 --> 00:04:24.063 there, as you can see in the max part of the bend.” 92 00:04:24.063 --> 00:04:26.733 We knew by looking at it at that point it was not going to roll up. 93 00:04:26.733 --> 00:04:29.502 So we knew the night before that we were going to do a jettison 94 00:04:29.502 --> 00:04:34.240 the next day. I was holding it and I just took my hands off of it. 95 00:04:34.307 --> 00:04:36.976 And at some point the jet plumes hit it 96 00:04:36.976 --> 00:04:39.679 and it started flapping like this giant bird. 97 00:04:39.679 --> 00:04:42.915 And we were over the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, the deserts. 98 00:04:42.915 --> 00:04:46.486 And it was like this pterodactyl cruising out there over the deserts. 99 00:04:46.486 --> 00:04:48.855 And I had the best view in the universe. 100 00:04:48.855 --> 00:04:52.592 It just it just riveted my attention to it, just watching it. 101 00:04:52.592 --> 00:04:55.795 And I remember saying, Tom, that looks like a bird. 102 00:04:55.795 --> 00:04:59.799 Of the four spacewalkers, we all knew what everybody was doing. 103 00:04:59.799 --> 00:05:02.368 We knew how to do what the guy out there is doing. 104 00:05:02.368 --> 00:05:04.337 And so we could maybe see things. 105 00:05:04.337 --> 00:05:08.041 Claude Nicollier was incredible on the arm. 106 00:05:08.041 --> 00:05:11.377 He would move it and sort of relieve stresses and strains 107 00:05:11.377 --> 00:05:12.512 that we don't even mention to him. 108 00:05:12.512 --> 00:05:14.314 He would just see, you know what that looks like. 109 00:05:14.314 --> 00:05:15.181 It's a little uncomfortable. 110 00:05:15.181 --> 00:05:18.785 And he just tweaked the arm a little bit and get you to the right place. 111 00:05:18.785 --> 00:05:21.621 And when I was installing COSTAR, I was holding it. 112 00:05:21.621 --> 00:05:24.190 But the only thing I could see in front of my face was silver. 113 00:05:24.190 --> 00:05:26.959 I mean, I had no notion of anything going on around me. 114 00:05:26.959 --> 00:05:31.364 So my job was to be a rigid body, and he's the one who actually drove that 115 00:05:31.364 --> 00:05:32.865 In for the most part, 116 00:05:32.865 --> 00:05:36.703 Tom would give me some clues about pitch up, you know, roll a little bit. 117 00:05:36.703 --> 00:05:40.340 But mostly it was Claude that, as long as I stayed rigid, 118 00:05:40.340 --> 00:05:41.941 he could put it in there, he could drive it in. 119 00:05:41.941 --> 00:05:47.613 And we had clearances that were really small getting in the two guide rails. 120 00:05:47.613 --> 00:05:50.750 Every time we stuck in an instrument or did something 121 00:05:50.750 --> 00:05:53.853 the ground would command it and we'd see the power was on 122 00:05:53.853 --> 00:05:55.154 and that it was sending data. 123 00:05:55.154 --> 00:06:00.193 So before we landed, in fact, by the time we finished the fifth spacewalk, 124 00:06:00.193 --> 00:06:04.197 we knew that everything that we could do had been done correctly. 125 00:06:04.197 --> 00:06:08.000 But, you know, unless it worked, then nobody was successful. 126 00:06:08.000 --> 00:06:10.203 It doesn't matter that what we could do had been done right. 127 00:06:10.203 --> 00:06:14.574 If it didn't work, then the whole team was not a success. 128 00:06:14.574 --> 00:06:17.377 And so it wasn't quite the let your hair down 129 00:06:17.377 --> 00:06:20.213 celebrate when we got home, that that didn't happen 130 00:06:20.213 --> 00:06:24.150 until after we saw the images in January coming back. 131 00:06:24.150 --> 00:06:26.652 The images are incredibly gorgeous. 132 00:06:26.652 --> 00:06:29.389 They're just, they're art. They're just beauty. 133 00:06:29.389 --> 00:06:32.525 And I just sort of revel in that every time I get to see one. 134 00:06:32.525 --> 00:06:36.996 Even now. Oh, they're just amazing. 135 00:06:36.996 --> 00:06:41.367 Hubble, I think, was the most incredible invention since Galileo 136 00:06:41.367 --> 00:06:45.471 and the telescope as far as astronomy and astrophysics. 137 00:06:45.471 --> 00:06:49.142 Hubble has generated data that generations of scientists 138 00:06:49.142 --> 00:06:52.378 are going to be still looking at, still analyzing. 139 00:06:52.378 --> 00:06:54.914 It's just generated tons and tons of stuff. 140 00:06:54.914 --> 00:06:57.817 More discoveries will be made after Hubble is done 141 00:06:57.817 --> 00:06:59.118 because the data will still be there. 142 00:06:59.118 --> 00:07:03.089 I feel personally connected to the Hubble because my oldest daughter 143 00:07:03.089 --> 00:07:06.325 was 11 years old when we launched on that and she got her PhD. 144 00:07:06.325 --> 00:07:09.262 in astrophysics using Hubble data. 145 00:07:09.262 --> 00:07:11.597 Her dissertation director got his PhD. 146 00:07:11.597 --> 00:07:13.065 using Hubble data 147 00:07:13.065 --> 00:07:16.402 and dedicated his dissertation to the astronauts who fixed Hubble. 148 00:07:16.502 --> 00:07:21.574 So I feel like it's partly mine. 149 00:07:21.574 --> 00:07:24.744 “Okay, KT you ready?” 150 00:07:24.744 --> 00:07:26.045 “Yeah I’m ready!” 151 00:07:26.045 --> 00:07:30.683 “They say you got to go for release.” 152 00:07:30.683 --> 00:07:37.089 “Ok, no hands!” 153 00:07:37.089 --> 00:07:47.033 “Look how stable you left that. 154 00:07:47.033 --> 00:07:53.005 There it goes! 155 00:07:53.005 --> 00:07:57.977 Pretty neat job KT!” 156 00:07:57.977 --> 00:08:02.548 “Almost like a bird Tom, look at it!” 157 00:08:02.548 --> 00:08:32.578 [ MUSIC ] 158 00:08:32.578 --> 00:08:44.490 Servicing Mission 1 had five spacewalks. Kathy Thornton participated in two of them. 159 00:08:44.490 --> 00:08:58.838 After installing corrective optics, Hubble had a clear view of the cosmos. 160 00:08:58.838 --> 00:09:09.515 Thirty years later, Hubble continues making discoveries that change our understanding of the universe. 161 00:09:09.515 --> 00:09:19.959 “Follow us on social media @NASAHubble”