What was the hubble space telescope’s initial problems?
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What was the hubble space telescope’s initial problems and how were they overcome? Most reasons get most points?
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What was the hubble space telescope’s initial problems and how were they overcome? Most reasons get most points?
April 28th, 2010 at 3:30 am
This article explains the initial problem with the Hubble Telescope’s mirror. The Shuttle mission STS-61 was sent to fix the problem. LaurelHS
April 30th, 2010 at 9:29 pm
The main problem was that its primary optics, a mirror, had been ground incorrectly, which resulted in an incorrect spacing of a lens, which prevented the HST from focusing to the precision that it was designed to. Subsequent missions repaired the optics by applying “glasses” to the main lens that brought it up to spec. Earth Man
April 30th, 2010 at 11:52 pm
The engineers who were making the mirror had time constraints so they did not properly test the mirror before they sent it in space. They measured some error as well but did not bother to fix it.
The mirror was too flat by 2.2 microns, which presented spherical aberration, a phenomenon that focuses the images/light at a different point than it was supposed to.
This meant that the light hitting the edge of the mirrors reflected the light further away than the light hitting the center of the mirror, so the image became blurry. bboyReLive