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1. he Hubble Space Telescope (HST) early during its construction.
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2. orkers study Hubble’s main, eight-foot (2.4 m) mirror. Hubble, like all
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telescopes, plays a kind of pinball game with light to force it to go where
scientists need it to go. When light enters Hubble, it reflects off the main
mirror and strikes a second, smaller mirror. The light bounces back again, this
time through a two-foot (0.6 m) hole in the center of the main mirror, beyond
which Hubble’s science instruments wait to capture it. In this photo, the hole
is covered up.
3. ubble being transferred from the Vertical Assembly Test Area to the High
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Bay at the Lockheed assembly plant in Sunnyvale, California in preparation
for transport to the Kennedy Space Center after final testing and verification.
4. solar cell blanket deployed on a water table during the Solar Array deployA
ment test. The Hubble Solar Arrays provide power to the spacecraft. The
arrays are mounted on opposite sides of the HST, on the forward shell of the
Support Systems Module. Each array stands on a 4-foot mast that supports
a retractable wing of solar panels 40-feet (12.1-meters) long and 8.2-feet
(2.5-meters) wide, in full extension. The arrays rotate so that the solar cells
face the Sun as much as possible to harness the Sun’s energy. The Space
Telescope Operations Control Center at the Goddard Space Center operates
the array, extending the panels and maneuvering the spacecraft to focus
maximum sunlight on the arrays.