Hubble Problems Could Affect Mission

The Hubble Space Telescope is experiencing technical problems that could delay a planned Oct. 14 shuttle mission to service it, Kennedy Space Center Director Bill Parsons said this morning.

"We may have to adjust our mission accordingly to deal with that," Parsons said during a presentation at a space legislative forum in Cocoa.

Parsons said an instrumentation unit that gathers data "is having some issues."

A backup unit exists, "but that's never been used on orbit, it's only been used on the ground," he said.

If the backup unit cannot be activated successfully, officials may need to consider a repair in orbit, Parons said.

That would require new training for an Atlantis crew that already had a packed schedule during five spacewalks. Their work included installing a powerful new camera and spectrograph, repairing two science instruments and installing new batteries, gyroscopes and guidance sensors.

Parsons said Hubble program managers would provide more explanation of the problem later today.