NASA Briefings to Unveil Hubble's New Observations

NASA Briefings to Unveil Hubble's New Observations

WASHINGTON -- NASA will hold news briefings at 11 a.m. and noon EDT Wednesday, Sept. 9, to release and discuss the first images from the newly refurbished Hubble Space Telescope. NASA Television and the agency's Web site will provide live coverage of the briefings from NASA Headquarters in Washington. Space shuttle Atlantis' STS-125 mission upgraded the telescope in May with state-of-the-art science instruments, leaving it more powerful than ever and extending its life into the next decade.

Charlie Bolden, NASA administrator and pilot of space shuttle Discovery on the STS-31 mission that launched Hubble in 1990, will join U.S. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, D-Md., in the unveiling of the Hubble images during the 11 a.m. briefing. A panel of scientists then will discuss Hubble's new and refurbished instruments and the images they produced. The participants are: -- Ed Weiler, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters -- Bob O'Connell, chair of the science oversight committee for the Wide Field Camera 3 at the University of Virginia -- James Green, the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph principal investigator at the University of Colorado -- David Leckrone, senior project scientist for Hubble at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. -- Heidi Hammel, senior research scientist at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

The briefings will be held in the James E. Webb Memorial Auditorium, 300 E St. S.W., Washington. Reporters also may ask questions from participating NASA locations by phone. To reserve a phone line, journalists should send an e-mail to J.D. Harrington at j.d.harrington@nasa.gov with their name, media affiliation and telephone number. The second briefing immediately follows at noon.

The STS-125 astronauts will discuss how they enabled Hubble's new capabilities during their historic servicing mission. Scott Altman commanded Atlantis' crew, which included Pilot Gregory C. Johnson and Mission Specialists Andrew Feustel, Michael Good, John Grunsfeld, Megan McArthur and Mike Massimino. For more information about NASA TV downlinks and streaming video, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

For more information about Hubble, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/hubble