Local aerospace companies across the Washington region will perform much of the work on NASA’s latest Hubble Space Telescope repair mission. NASA officials announced Tuesday that the federal agency will spend $900 million to repair the 16-year-old telescope that changed the face of astronomy with its ability to capture images of the universe going back 12 billion years.
Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin, which originally built the Hubble Telescope, as well as Beltsville-based Swales Aerospace, Fairfax-based ManTech, Orbital Science Corporation in Dulles and Washington-based Jackson and Tull are among the local firms that have existing contracts with NASA related to the Hubble program. NASA will not award any new contracts for the mission, which is expected to launch in May 2008 and last 11 days.
Most of the prep work will be performed at Goddard Space Flight Center in Beltsville, including building and testing much of the equipment, said Michael Weiss, deputy program manager for the Hubble Space Telescope Program.
In addition to building two new camera instruments that will be installed on the telescope, engineers at Goddard are responsible for integrating all 22,000 pounds of hardware that will fly on the mission, Weiss said. The telescope itself is also operated from Goddard.
“If you were to take away the space shuttle, the launch, landing and the astronauts, every thing else on the Hubble Space Telescope is done here,” Weiss said. “It’s a huge amount of work.” Lockheed Martin has been a major player in the Hubble program. The company originally built the telescope and has provided ongoing support for the four subsequent servicing missions.
“We have found that working on the Hubble Space Telescope is more than just a job. It is a passion and we are enormously excited to be going back to Hubble again and providing it a new lease on life,” said Dennis Connolly, Lockheed Martin program manager of HST Flight Systems and Servicing, in a statement Tuesday. “We’re very proud to work with our colleagues at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center to maintain this magnificent observatory and extend its mission of discovery.”
The latest repair mission should keep Hubble working through 2013. The decision was announced by NASA administrator Michael Griffin.
