Official Nasa Communication N02-011

Kyle Herring/Don Savage Headquarters, Washington (Phone: 202/358-4504/1727)

Feb. 7, 2002

Eileen Hawley Johnson Space Center, Houston (Phone: 281/483-5111) NOTE TO EDITORS: N02-11 SHUTTLE MISSION TO SERVICE HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE SUBJECT OF FEB. 15 PRESS BRIEFINGS The fourth Space Shuttle mission devoted to upgrade and enhancement of the 12-year-old Hubble Space Telescope (HST) will be previewed during a series of press briefings beginning at 9 a.m. EST Friday, Feb. 15. The daylong program of briefings will air live on NASA Television from NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston, and from NASA Headquarters, Washington. Seven astronauts will climb aboard Columbia Feb. 28 to embark on an 11-day mission to replace Hubble's solar arrays, power switching station and one of four primary pointing devices, and to install powerful new optical instrument called the Advanced Camera for Surveys. This camera will provide astronomers with about 10 times the discovery capability of the Wide Field Planetary Camera currently operating in Hubble. Additionally, on one of the five planned spacewalks, the crew will revive a key infrared instrument that has been dormant since 1999 by installing an experimental cooling system and an associated radiator. The briefings will focus on Columbia's STS-109 and Hubble missions, Hubble science, the five spacewalks and the crew news conference. The briefing schedule follows. Following the crew news conference, round-robin interviews with the astronauts will be available to reporters at JSC and to those who make phone arrangements in advance. Reporters interested in participating should call the JSC newsroom at 281/483-5111 by 1 p.m. EST Thursday, Feb. 14. The round-robin interviews will not be broadcast on NASA TV.

NASA Television is available on GE-2, Transponder 9C, at 85 degrees West longitude, vertical polarization, with a frequency of 3880 MHz, and audio of 6.8 MHz. -endSTS-109 PREFLIGHT BRIEFING SCHEDULE (all times EST) 8:30 a.m. -- STS-109 preflight briefing supporting video (19min. runtime) 9:00-10:30 a.m. -- Mission Overview, JSC Phil Engelauf, STS-109 Mission Director Bryan Austin, STS-109 Lead Flight Director 10:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m. -- HST Project Overview, Headquarters Anne Kinney, Director, Astronomy and Physics Division, NASA Headquarters Preston Burch, HST Program Manager, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Greenbelt, Md. 12:00 p.m. -- Video File, Headquarters 12:30 p.m.-1:30 p.m. -- HST Science Overview, Headquarters Ed Weiler, Associate Administrator, Office of Space Science, Headquarters Dave Leckrone, HST Project Scientist, GSFC Holland Ford, Principal Investigator, Advanced Camera for Surveys Ed Cheng, Lead Scientist, NICMOS Cooling System 1:30 p.m.-3:00 p.m. -- STS-109 Extravehicular Activity Overview, JSC Dana Weigel, STS-109 Lead EVA Officer, JSC 3:00 p.m.-4:00 p.m. -- STS-109 Crew News Conference, JSC Scott Altman, Commander Duane Carey, Pilot John Grunsfeld, Mission Specialist 1, Payload Commander Nancy Currie, Mission Specialist 2 Rick Linnehan, Mission Specialist 3 Jim Newman, Mission Specialist 4 Mike Massimino, Mission Specialist 5