KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. - The STS-109 crew members wave to onlookers as they stride out from the Operations and Checkout Building, eager to get to the launch pad. They are, from front to back, Pilot Duane G. Carey (left) and Commander Scott D. Altman (right); Mission Specialist Nance Jane Currie; Payload Commander John M. Grunsfeld (left) and Richard M. Linnehan (right); James H. Newman (left) and Michael J. Massimino (right). On mission STS-109, the crew will capture the Hubble Space Telescope using the Shuttle's robotic arm and secure it on a workstand in Columbia's payload bay. Four mission specialists will perform five scheduled spacewalks to complete system upgrades to the telescope. More durable solar arrays, a large gyroscopic assembly to help point the telescope properly, a new telescope power control unit, and a cooling system to restore the use of a key infrared camera and spectrometer unit, which has been dormant since 1999, will all be installed. In addition, the telescope's view of the Universe will be improved with the addition of the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), which replaces the Faint Object Camera, the last of Hubble's original instruments. Mission STS-109 is the 27th flight of the orbiter Columbia and the 108th flight overall in NASA's Space Shuttle program. After the 11-day mission, STS-109 is scheduled to land about 4:35 a.m. EST on March 12. [Photo by Scott Andrews KSC-02pd0216
