Goodrich To Aid Hubble Telescope Mission

Goodrich [GR] was chosen by NASA to provide an additional highly accurate, sophisticated optical system — the fine guidance sensor — to the Hubble program.

This comes after NASA Administrator Michael Griffin announced a decision to send a space shuttle aloft to service the Hubble, giving the eye in the sky years of renewed life.

The Hubble’s original fine guidance sensors and optical telescope assembly also were produced by the company’s Electro-Optical Systems team, based in Danbury, Conn.

Those fine guidance sensors are a critical part of the telescope’s pointing system and are responsible for keeping the telescope accurately pointed for the long periods of time needed to produce images of distant stars and galaxies.

According to Chris Holmes, Vice President and General Manager for Goodrich’s Electro-Optical Systems team, “At Goodrich we were very pleased to learn of NASA’s decision to extend the Hubble mission.

“An additional servicing mission will significantly enhance the telescope’s science capabilities and should extend its service life to 2013 or beyond. Our team is currently in the process of upgrading a fine guidance sensor for this servicing mission.

“This fine guidance sensor will be the third upgrade and it will replace one of the units currently on the telescope. The other two units were installed on previous servicing missions.”