Servicing the Hubble Space Telescope
Space Shuttle Atlantis 2009

by Dennis R Jenkins and Jorge R Frank

Speciality Press

Reviewed by Mick Evans

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This publication from Specialty Press is a soft cover book and is a full colour glossy publication.  This publication contains 120 pages of English text with a massive amount of stunning colour photographs of the Hubble telescope, space shuttles and some of the amazing deep space photographs taken by this unique telescope.

The book starts with the history and development of the Hubble Telescope with a good description and the purpose of the science packages that make up the telescope.  Most interesting are some of the extraordinary deep space photographs of galaxies and stars that are way outside the range of conventional Earth based telescopes as these give an insight into the age, formation and growth of the universe.

The Hubble telescope was finally launched into orbit aboard Space Shuttle Discovery on 24 April 1990 after a 42 month delay due to the loss of Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986 causing all shuttles to be grounded.  The Hubble telescope orbits the earth at an altitude of 350 miles where it has an uncontaminated view of our own galaxy providing very detailed photographs of the planets and has also discovered galaxies and stars that were unknown prior to the Hubble Telescope.

A complex system like the Hubble telescope needs to be maintained and these missions commenced in December 1993 and continued to May 2009.  The space shuttle will finally retire sometime in 2010 after which the telescope will be on its own for the remainder of its life.  Servicing such a complex system in such a difficult environment needed accurate planning and intensive training as there is no margin for error in space.  The authors have included some amazing in situ photographs of the astronauts servicing and repairing the telescope as well as many shuttle launches and landing sequence photographs

Overall this is quite a comprehensive and nicely illustrated publication and will be a welcome addition to the library collection of any space or shuttle enthusiast or modeller wanting good reference detail for the space shuttle.

Thanks to Speciality Press for the review sample