Rendezvous with Destiny

By MICHAEL D. LEMONICK

When the shuttle Endeavour blasted into space last Thursday morning, its near flawless lift-off lighting up Florida's predawn skies and dazzling onlookers in and around the Kennedy Space Center, NASA officials felt a mix of relief and tense anticipation. Though the launch was delayed a day by bad weather, the countdown was free of the technical glitches that had grounded shuttles so many times before. But the really hard part was yet to come: a week of dangerous and delicate maneuvers performed more than 300 miles up in space. The challenge facing Endeavour's seven-member crew was not just to fix the hobbled Hubble Telescope and thus ensure the future of space science. The larger goal was to repair NASA's reputation, battered in recent years by accusations of incompetence, mismanagement -- and, just last week, major fraud as well (see box).

The Hubble rescue is by far the most difficult mission since the moon landings. The crew was set to perform at least five six-hour space walks, and maybe up to seven, in order to replace or repair the telescope's myopic primary mirror, an outdated camera, two wobbly solar-energy panels and three faulty gyroscopes, among other balky components -- 11 fixes in all. Says mission scientist Edward Weiler sardonically: "This is not a trip to Grandma's house to fix the faucet."

At week's end the mission was going flawlessly. After closing the 6,700-mile gap between the two spacecraft, Endeavour caught up with Hubble on Saturday morning. As shuttle commander Richard Covey steered his spacecraft to within 35 ft. of the telescope, astronaut Claude Nicollier used a robot arm to grab the 43-ft.-long, 25,000-lb. device and lowered it into the shuttle's cargo bay, where some repairs will be done. "Houston, Endeavour has a firm handshake with Mr. Hubble's telescope," Covey told Mission Control. "It's quite a sight." The crew also found that one of the telescope's two 40-ft.- long solar panels was in even worse condition than expected, with severe kinks and twists; astronauts planned to replace both panels in space walks early this week.

Despite 400 hours of training in NASA's space-simulating water tanks and plenty of spacewalking experience, the astronauts realize that the tiniest unforeseen problem could turn their effort into a disaster. A stripped bolt, a slightly misaligned part, a slip on the part of the fix-it crew could disable the telescope completely, leaving NASA and the scientists who depend on the Hubble worse off than before.

Yet without this $629 million repair mission, the telescope would probably break down soon anyway. Its blurred vision, caused by an improperly ground primary mirror that NASA failed to test thoroughly before launch, is the least of the Hubble trouble. The telescope's solar panels wobble badly when they're heated by the sun; if they snapped off, the craft would be virtually powerless. It is one gyroscope away from being rudderless. And its electronics have been acting up more than they should.

Because the repairs are so numerous and so intricate -- the 600-lb., telephone booth-size compartment containing Hubble's corrective lenses has to fit into an opening with less than an inch to spare -- the entire mission has + been choreographed more precisely than a Balanchine ballet. Unlike last year's rescue of Intelsat-6, in which astronauts literally grabbed the satellite when the shuttle's robot arm couldn't grasp it, the Hubble repairs require more agility than physical strength. Patience and caution are also crucial to the mission's success. Says astronaut Kathryn Thornton, who will install the planetary camera: "If you all on the ground think it's taking a long time to put it into position, well, it's got to be that way."

Whether or not the repairs work -- and that won't be fully known for several weeks -- it is becoming clear that big, risky, expensive projects like the Hubble have become too much for one country to handle. Even as Endeavour was being readied for launch, the Clinton Administration announced a major shift in plans for an orbiting space station, a project complex enough to make the Hubble mission's space walks seem like cakewalks. Formalizing a proposal first floated last spring, the White House confirmed that the space station will be a multinational venture, with a starring role reserved for America's old rival, Russia. This week the U.S. will invite the land of Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin to turn the space race into a space partnership. Moscow's agreement is assured.

The deal appears to be a bargain for everyone. Russia will get about $1 billion in revenues during the next decade, creating about 60,000 jobs in its depressed aerospace industry, in return for supplying hardware and expertise. The U.S. and its other partners in the project -- Japan, Canada, Italy and the European Space Agency -- will save an estimated $2 billion over the same period, bringing the expected space-station price tag down to $29 billion.

The result is intended to be a station that is bigger and more versatile and that flies higher than the model previously planned by the U.S. But it will never become a reality if Congress, already fed up with NASA's constant cost overruns, balks at funding the project. Even though congressional leaders from both parties have cautiously endorsed the plan to join forces with the Russians, one more major space failure could blow the whole deal.

That is why the space station's advocates will be rooting so hard this week for the Endeavour astronauts. If they fail to fix the Hubble, Congress will have less confidence that NASA can carry out even tougher missions -- with or without Russian help.

With reporting by Jerry Hannifin/Cape Canaveral and Dick Thompson/Washington