After five-and-a-half hours of work, Atlantis spacewalker Mike Massimino has finally won access to an electronics box inside a Hubble Space Telescope science instrument. He removed 111 loose screws fastening a cover plate in place, using color-coded drill bits to handle screws of different sizes.
A specially designed capture fixture, similar to the one used by mission specialist John Grunsfeld on Saturday, kept the screws from floating away and potentially damaging the four-story orbiting observatory. Spacewalking partner Mike Good then cut two bundles of wires to free the cover plate on the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph, or STIS, at about 3:20 p.m.
Next, Massimino will use another new tool to remove an electronics card so he can install a new one.
A power failure in 2004 rendered all three STIS channels useless.
Spectrographs break light into its component parts, helping scientists determine the distance, composition and movement of distant objects ranging from stars to galaxies.
The STIS helped determine that black holes are common at the centers of galaxies.
NASA hopes a revived STIS will complement and back up a state-of-the-art sister spectrograph installed Saturday - the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph.
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