Shuttle astronauts begin spacewalk to repair and upgrade Hubble

During the spacewalk two astronauts will install a new camera on the space telescope and replace a failed computerAstronauts on the space shuttle Atlantis have begun the first of five spacewalks servicing the Hubble Space Telescope.During the six hours and 30 minutes they spend outside the shuttle, Nasa astronauts John Grunsfeld and Drew Feustel will remove Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 and replace it with the new Wide Field Camera 3, which will allow Hubble to capture a wide range of images in ultraviolet to near-infrared wavelengths.The astronauts will also replace a failed science data processing computer that delayed Atlantis's launch last October. The Science Instrument Command and Data Handling Unit sends commands to Hubble's science instruments and formats science data for transmission to the ground.Finally, Grunsfeld and Feustel will install a mechanism that will allow a spacecraft to capture Hubble and take it out of orbit at the...

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